LIBKAKY 

mmsiJ^  Of  CALiFUKi^m 

RIVERSIDE 


The  Peace  Movement 
in  America 

A  facsimile  reprint  collection 


"Peace' 


Jerome  S.  Ozer,  Publisher 
1972 


Library  of  Congress  Catalog  Card  No.  75-137524 

This  edition  is  reprinted  from  a  copy  in  the  collection  of  The  Public  Library 
of  Newark,  New  Jersey 

Manufactured  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PEACE    AND    BREAD 

^         IN  TIME  OF  WAR 


By 

JANE    ADDAMS 


il5tto  ^et^ 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN   THE  UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA 


Copyright,  1922, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  printed.     Published  February,  1922, 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 

New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


This  book  is  dedicated  in  affectionate  gratitude 
To 

HELEN  CULVER 

Whose  understanding  mind  and  magnanimous 

spirit  have  never  failed  the   writer  either  in 

times  of  peace  or  war. 


FOREWORD 

The  following  pages  are  the  outgrowth  of  an 
attempt  to  write  a  brief  history  of  the  efforts  for 
peace  made  by  a  small  group  of  women  in  the 
United  States  during  the  European  War,  and  of 
their  connection  with  the  women  of  other  coun- 
tries, as  together  they  became  organized  into 
the  Women's  International  League  for  Peace  and 
Freedom. 

Such  a  history  would  of  course  be  meaningless, 
unless  it  portrayed  the  scruples  and  convictions 
upon  which  these  efforts  were  based.  During  the 
writing  of  it,  however,  I  found  myself  so  in- 
creasingly reluctant  to  interpret  the  motives  of 
other  people  that  at  length  I  confined  all  anal- 
ysis of  motives  to  my  own.  As  my  reactions  were 
in  no  wise  unusual,  I  can  only  hope  that  the  auto- 
biographical portrayal  of  them  may  prove  to  be 
fairly  typical  and  interpretative  of  many  like- 
minded  people  who,  as  the  great  war  progressed, 
gradually  found  themselves  the  protagonists  of 
that  most  unpopular  of  all  causes — peace  in  time 
of  war. 

I  was  occasionally  reminded  of  a  dictum  found 


viii  FOREWORD 

on  the  cover  of  a  long  since  extinct  magazine  en- 
titled "The  Arena,"  which  read  somewhat  in  this 
wise:  "We  do  not  possess  our  ideas,  they  pos- 
sess us,  and  force  us  into  the  arena  to  fight  for 
them."  It  would  be  more  fitting  for  our  group 
to  say  "to  be  martyred  for  them,"  but  candor 
compels  the  confession  that  no  such  dignified  fate 
was  permitted  us.  Our  portion  was  the  odium 
accorded  those  who,  because  they  are  not  allowed 
to  state  their  own  cause,  suffer  constantly  from 
inimical  misrepresentation  and  are  often  placed 
in  the  position  of  seeming  to  defend  what  is  a 
mere  travesty  of  their  convictions. 

We  realize,  therefore,  that  even  the  kindest 
of  readers  must  perforce  still  look  at  our  group 
through  the  distorting  spectacles  he  was  made  to 
wear  during  the  long  period  of  war  propaganda. 

As  the  writing  progressed  I  entitled  the  book 
"Peace  and  Bread  in  Time  of  War."  Not  because 
the  first  two  words  were  the  touching  slogan  of 
war-weary  Russian  peasants,  but  because  peace 
and  bread  had  become  inseparably  connected  in 
my  mind. 

I  shall  consider  myself  fortunate  if  I  am  able 
to  convey  to  the  reader  the  inevitability  of  the 
relationship. 

Hull-House, 
Chicago. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  p^CE 

Foreword vii 

I    At  THE  Beginning  of  the  Great  War  .     .  i 


II    The  Neutral  Conference  Plus  the  Ford 

Ship 26 

III  President     Wilson's     Policies     and     the 

Woman's  Peace  Party 49 

IV  A  Review  of  Bread  Rations  and  Woman's 

Traditions 73 

V    A  Speculation  on   Bread  Labor  and  War 

Slogans gi 

VI    After  the  United  States  Entered  the  War  107 

VII     Personal  Reactions  in  Time  of  War  .     .  132 

VIII     In  Europe  During  the  Armistice     .     .     .  152 

IX    The  Aftermath  of  War 178 

X    The   Food  Challenge  to  the  League  of 

Nations 199 

XI    In  Europe  After  Two  Years  of  Peace  .     .  223 

An  After  Word 247 

Appendix 253 

ix 


PEACE  AND  BREAD 

IN  TIME  OF  WAR 


PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN 
TIME  OF  WAR 

CHAPTER  I. 

AT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR. 

When  the  news  came  to  America  of  the  open- 
ing hostilities  which  were  the  beginning  of  the 
European  Conflict,  the  reaction  against  war,  as 
such,  was  almost  instantaneous  throughout  the 
country.  This  was  most  strikingly  registered  in 
the  newspaper  cartoons  and  comments  which  ex- 
pressed astonishment  that  such  an  archaic  institu- 
tion should  be  revived  in  modern  Europe.  A  pro- 
cession of  women  led  by  the  daughter  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  walked  the  streets  of  New  York 
City  in  protest  against  war  and  the  sentiment  thus 
expressed,  if  not  the  march  itself,  was  universally 
approved  by  the  press. 

Certain  professors,  with  the  full  approval  of 
their  universities,  set  forth  with  clarity  and  some- 
times with  poignancy  the  conviction  that  a  war 
would  inevitably  interrupt  all  orderly  social  ad- 


2       PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

vance  and  at  its  end  the  long  march  of  civilization 
would  have  to  be  taken  up  again  much  nearer  to 
the  crude  beginnings  of  human  progress. 

The  Carnegie  Endowment  sent  several  people 
lecturing  through  the  country  upon  the  history  of 
the  Peace  movement  and  the  various  instru- 
mentalities designed  to  be  used  in  a  war  crisis  such 
as  this.  I  lectured  in  twelve  of  the  leading  col- 
leges, where  I  found  the  audiences  of  young 
people  both  large  and  eager.  The  questions 
which  they  put  were  often  penetrating,  sometimes 
touching  or  wistful,  but  almost  never  bellicose  or 
antagonistic.  Doubtless  there  were  many  stu- 
dents of  the  more  belligerent  type  who  did  not  at- 
tend the  lectures  and  occasionally  a  professor,  In- 
variably one  of  the  older  men,  rose  in  the  audience 
to  uphold  the  traditional  glories  of  warfare.  I 
also  recall  a  tea  under  the  shadow  of  Columbia 
which  was  divided  into  two  spirited  camps,  but  I 
think  on  the  whole  it  Is  fair  to  say  that  in  the  fall 
of  19 14  the  young  people  In  a  dozen  of  the  lead- 
ing colleges  of  the  East  were  eager  for  knowledge 
as  to  all  the  international  devices  which  had  been 
established  for  substituting  rational  negotiation 
for  war.  There  seemed  to  have  been  a  somewhat 
general  reading  of  Brailsford's  "War  of  Steel  and 
Gold"  and  of  Norman  Angell's  "Great  Illusion." 

It  was  In  the  early  fall  of  19 14  that  a  small 
group  of  social  workers  held  the  first  of  a  series 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR        3 

of  meetings  at  the  Henry  Street  Settlement  in 
New  York,  trying  to  formulate  the  reaction  to 
war  on  the  part  of  those  who  for  many  years  had 
devoted  their  energies  to  the  reduction  of  de- 
vastating poverty.  We  believed  that  the  en- 
deavor to  nurture  human  life  even  in  its  most 
humble  and  least  promising  forms  had  crossed 
national  boundaries;  that  those  who  had  given 
years  to  its  service  had  become  convinced  that 
nothing  of  social  value  can  be  obtained  save 
through  wide-spread  public  opinion  and  the  co- 
operation of  all  civilized  nations.  Many  mem- 
bers of  this  group  meeting  in  the  Henry  Street 
Settlement  had  lived  in  the  cosmopolitan  districts 
of  American  cities.  All  of  us,  through  long  ex- 
perience among  the  immigrants  from  many  na- 
tions, were  convinced  that  a  friendly  and  cooper- 
ative relationship  was  constantly  becoming  more 
possible  between  all  peoples.  We  believed  that 
war,  seeking  its  end  through  coercion,  not  only  in- 
terrupted but  fatally  reversed  this  process  of  co- 
operating good  will  which,  if  it  had  a  chance, 
would  eventually  include  the  human  family  itself. 

The  European  War  was  already  dividing  our 
immigrant  neighbors  from  each  other.  We  could 
not  imagine  asking  ourselves  whether  the  parents 
of  a  child  who  needed  help  were  Italians,  and 
therefore  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  or  Dalmatians, 
and  therefore  on  the  side  of  the  Central  Powers. 


4       PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Such  a  question  was  as  remote  as  if  during  the 
Balkan  war  we  had  anxiously  inquired  whether 
the  parents  were  Macedonians  or  Montenegrins 
although  at  one  time  that  distinction  had  been  of 
paramount  importance  to  many  of  our  neighbors. 
We  revolted  not  only  against  the  cruelty  and 
barbarity  of  war,  but  even  more  against  the  re- 
versal of  human  relationships  which  war  implied. 
We  protested  against  the  "curbed  intelligence" 
and  the  "thwarted  good  will,"  when  both  a  free 
mind  and  unfettered  kindliness  are  so  sadly  needed 
in  human  affairs.  In  the  light  of  the  charge  made 
later  that  pacifists  were  indifferent  to  the  claims  of 
justice  it  is  interesting  to  recall  that  we  thus  early 
emphasized  the  fact  that  a  sense  of  justice  had  be- 
come the  keynote  to  the  best  political  and  social 
activity  in  this  generaton,  but  we  also  believed  that 
justice  between  men  or  between  nations  can  be 
achieved  only  through  understanding  and  fellow- 
ship, and  that  a  finely  tempered  sense  of  justice, 
which  alone  is  of  any  service  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion, cannot  possibly  be  secured  in  the  storm  and 
stress  of  war.  This  is  not  only  because  war  in- 
evitably arouses  the  more  primitive  antagonisms, 
but  because  the  spirit  of  fighting  burns  away  all 
those  impulses,  certainly  towards  the  enemy, 
which  foster  the  will  to  justice.  We  were  there- 
fore certain  that  if  war  prevailed,  all  social  efforts 
would  be  cast  into  an  earlier  and  coarser  mold. 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR       5 

The  results  of  these  various  discussions  were 
finally  put  together  by  Mr.  Paul  Kellogg,  editor 
of  The  Survey,  and  the  statement  entitled 
"Toward  the  Peace  that  Shall  Last"  was  given  a 
wide  circulation.  Reading  it  now,  it  appears  to 
be  somewhat  exaggerated  in  tone^because  we  have 
perforce  grown  accustomed  to  a  world  of  wide- 
spread war  with  its  inevitable  consequences  of 
divisions  and  animosities. 

The  heartening  effects  of  these  meetings  were 
long  felt  by  many  of  the  social  workers  as  they 
proceeded  in  their  different  ways  to  do  what  they 
could  against  the  rising  tide  of  praise  for  the  use 
of  war  technique  in  the  world's  affairs.  One  type 
of  person  present  at  this  original  conference  felt 
that  he  must  make  his  protest  against  war  even  at 
the  risk  of  going  to  jail — in  fact  two  of  the  men 
did  so  testify  and  took  the  consequences;  another 
type  performed  all  non-combatant  service  open  to 
them  through  the  Red  Cross  and  other  agencies 
throughout  the  years  of  the  war  although  private- 
ly holding  to  their  convictions  as  best  they  might; 
a  third,  although  condemning  war  in  the  abstract 
were  convinced  of  the  righteousness  of  this  par- 
ticular war  and  that  it  would  end  all  wars;  still 
others  felt,  after  war  was  declared  in  the  United 
States,  that  they  must  surrender  all  private  judg- 
ment, and  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  majority. 

I  venture  to  believe,  however,  that  none  of  the 


6       PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

social  workers  present  at  that  gathering  who  had 
been  long  identified  with  the  poor  and  the  disin- 
herited, actually  accepted  participation  in  the  war 
without  a  great  struggle,  if  only  because  of  the 
reversal  in  the  whole  theory  and  practice  of  their 
daily  living. 

Several  organizations  were  formed  during  the 
next  few  months,  with  which  we  became  identified; 
Miss  Wald  was  the  first  president  of  the  Union 
Against  Militarism,  and  I  became  chairman  of 
what  was  called  the  Women's  Peace  Party.  The 
impulse  for  the  latter  organization  came  from 
Europe  when,  in  the  early  winter  of  19 14,  the 
great  war  was  discussed  from  the  public  platform 
in  the  United  States  by  two  women,  well  known 
suffragists  and  publicists,  who  nationally  repre- 
sented opposing  sides  of  the  conflict.  Mrs.  Peth- 
ick  Lawrence  of  England  first  brought  to  Ameri- 
can audiences  a  series  of  "War  Aims"  as  defined 
by  the  "League  of  Democratic  Control"  in  Lon- 
don, and  Mde.  Rosika  Schwimmer,  coming  from 
Budapest,  hoped  to  arouse  American  women  to 
join  their  European  sisters  in  a  general  protest 
against  war.  Occasionally  they  spoke  from  the 
same  platform  in  a  stirring  indictment  of  "the 
common  enemy  of  mankind."  They  were  unwil- 
ling to  leave  the  United  States  until  they  had  or- 
ganized at  least  a  small  group  pledged  to  the  ad- 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR        7 

vocacy  of  both  objects;  the  discussion  of  reason- 
able terms  of  peace,  and  a  protest  against  war  as 
a  method  of  settling  international  difficulties. 

The  Women's  Peace  Party  itself  was  the  out- 
come of  a  two  days'  convention  held  In  Washing- 
ton concluding  a  series  of  meetings  in  different 
cities  addressed  by  Mrs.  Lawrence  and  Madame 
Schwimmer.  The  "call"  to  the  convention  was  Is- 
sued by  Mrs.  Carrie  Chapman  Catt  and  myself, 
and  on  January  10,  19 15,  the  new  organization 
was  launched  at  a  mass  meeting  of  3000  people. 
A  ringing  preamble  written  by  Mrs.  Anna  Garlin 
Spencer  was  adopted  with  the  following  platform; 

1.  The  immediate  calling  of  a  convention  of 
neutral  nations  in  the  interest  of  early  peace. 

2.  Limitation  of  armaments  and  the  national- 
ization of  their  manufacture. 

3.  Organized  opposition  to  militarism  In  our 
own  country. 

4.  Education  of  youth  in  the  Ideals  of  peace. 

5.  Democratic  control  of  foreign  policies. 

6.  The  further  humanizing  of  governments 
by  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  women. 

7.  "Concert  of  Nations"  to  supersede  "Bal- 
ance of  Power." 

8.  Action  towards  the  gradual  re-organization 
of  the  world  to  substitute  Law  for  War. 

9.  The  substitution  of  economic  pressure  and 
of  non-intercourse  for  rival  armies  and  navies. 

10.     Removal  of  the  economic  causes  of  war. 


8        PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

II.  The  appointment  by  our  government  of  a 
commission  of  men  and  women  with  an  adequate 
appropriation  to  promote  international  peace. 

Of  course  all  the  world  has  since  become 
familiar  with  these  "Points,"  but  at  the  time  of 
their  adoption  as  a  platform  they  were  newer  and 
somewhat  startling. 

The  first  one,  as  a  plan  for  "continuous  media- 
tion," had  been  presented  to  the  convention  by 
Miss  Julia  G.  Wales  of  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, who  had  already  placed  it  before  the  legis- 
lature of  the  State.  Both  houses  had  given  it 
their  approval,  and  had  sent  it  on  with  recom- 
mendations for  adoption  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  The  plan  was  founded  upon  the 
assumption  that  the  question  of  peace  was  a  ques- 
tion of  terms;  that  every  country  desired  peace  at* 
the  earliest  possible  moment,  that  peace  could  be 
had  on  terms  satisfactory  to  itself.  The  plan  sug- 
gested an  International  Commission  of  Experts 
to  sit  as  long  as  the  war  continued,  with  scientific 
but  no  diplomatic  function;  such  a  commission 
should  explore  the  issues  involved  in  the  struggle 
in  order  to  make  proposals  to  the  belligerents  in 
a  spirit  of  constructive  internationalism.  Miss 
Wales  not  only  defined  such  a  Commission,  but 
presented  a  most  convincing  argument  In  its  be- 
half,  and  we  deliberately  made   the   immediate 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR        9 

calling  of  a  Conference  of  Neutrals  the  first  plank 
in  our  new  platform. 

The  officers  of  the  newly  formed  society  were : 
Mrs.  Anna  Garlin  Spencer  and  Mrs.  Henry  Vil- 
lard  of  New  York,  Mrs.  Lucia  Ames  Mead  and 
Mrs.  Glendower  Evans  of  Boston,  Mrs.  Louis 
F.  Post  and  Mrs.  John  J.  White  of  Washington. 
From  Chicago,  where  headquarters  were  estab- 
lished, were  Mrs.  Harriet  Thomas  as  execu- 
tive officer.  Miss  Breckenridge  of  the  University 
of  Chicago  as  treasurer,  and  myself  as  Chairman. 

All  of  the  officers  had  long  been  identified  with 
existing  Peace  organizations,  but  felt  the  need  of 
something  more  active  than  the  older  societies 
promised  to  afford.  The  first  plank  of  our  plat- 
form, the  Conference  of  Neutrals,  seemed  so  im- 
portant and  withal  so  reasonable,  that  our  officers 
in  the  month  following  the  founding  of  the  or- 
ganization, with  Louis  Lochner,  secretary  of  the 
Chicago  Peace  Society,  issued  a  call  to  every  public 
organization  in  the  United  States  whose  constitu- 
tion, so  far  as  we  could  discover,  contained  a  plank 
setting  forth  the  obligations  of  internationalism. 
These  organizations  of  course  included  hundreds 
of  mutual  benefit  societies,  of  trade  unions  and  so- 
cialist groups,  as  well  as  the  more  formal  peace 
and  reform  bodies.  The  call  invited  them  to  at- 
tend a  National  Emergency  Peace  Conference  at 
Chicago  in  March,  and  to  join  a  Federation  of 


10     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Peace  Forces.  A  very  interesting  group  re- 
sponded to  the  invitation,  and  the  Conference, 
resulting  in  the  formation  of  the  proposed 
Federation,  also  held  large  mass  meetings  urging 
the  call  of  a  Conference  of  Neutrals. 

The  Women's  Peace  Party,  during  the  first  few 
months  of  its  existence,  grew  rapidly,  with  flour- 
ishing branches  in  California  and  in  Minnesota, 
as  well  as  in  the  eastern  states.  The  Boston 
branch  eventually  opened  headquarters  on  the  first 
floor  of  a  building  in  the  busy  part  of  Boylston 
Street,  and  with  a  membership  of  twenty-five 
hundred,  carried  on  a  vigorous  campaign  among 
the  doubting,  making  public  opinion  both  for 
reasonable  peace  terms  and  for  a  possible  shorten- 
ing of  the  war.  A  number  of  the  leading  or- 
ganizations of  women  became  affiliated  branches 
of  the  Women's  Peace  Party.  Women  every- 
where seemed  eager  for  literature  and  lectures, 
and  as  the  movement  antedated  by  six  months  the 
organization  of  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  we 
had  the  field  all  to  ourselves. 

In  the  early  months  of  19 15,  it  was  still  com- 
paratively easy  to  get  people  together  in  the  name 
of  Peace,  and  the  members  of  the  new  organiza- 
tion scarcely  realized  that  they  were  placing  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  an  unpopular  cause.  One 
obvious  task  was  to  unite  with  other  organizations 
in  setting  out  a  constructive  program  with  which 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      ii 

an  international  public  should  become  so  familiar 
that  an  effective  demand  for  its  fulfillment  could 
be  made  at  the  end  of  the  war.  This  latter  un- 
dertaking had  been  brilliantly  inaugurated  by  The 
League  of  Democratic  Control  in  England,  and 
two  months  after  our  Washington  Convention, 
"The  Central  Organization  for  a  Durable  Peace" 
was  founded  in  Holland.  The  American  branch 
of  the  "Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Inter- 
national Friendship  Among  the  Churches"  also 
was  active  and  maintained  its  own  representative 
in  Europe.  As  a  neutral,  he  at  that  time  was  able 
to  go  from  one  country  to  another,  and  to  meet 
in  Holland  with  Churchmen  from  both  sides  of 
the  conflict.  We  always  found  him  most  willing 
to  cooperate  with  our  plans  at  home  and  abroad. 
His  successor,  George  Nasmyth,  was  also  a 
sturdy  friend  of  ours,  and  we  keenly  felt  the 
tragedy  of  his  death  at  Geneva,  in  1920. 

Through  the  very  early  spring  of  19 15,  out  of 
our  eagerness,  we  tried  all  sorts  of  new  methods 
of  propaganda,  new  at  least  so  far  as  peace  so- 
cieties were  concerned.  A  poem  which  had  ap- 
peared in  the  London  Nation  portraying  the  be- 
wilderment of  humble  Belgians  and  Germans  sent 
suddenly  to  arms,  was  set  to  Beethoven's  music 
and,  through  the  efforts  of  the  Women's  Peace 
Party,  sung  in  many  towns  and  cities  in  the 
United  States  by  the  Fuller  sisters,  three  young 


12      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

English  women,  whose  voices  were  most  appeal- 
ing. The  Carnegie  Endowment  for  International 
Peace  gave  us  a  grant  of  five  thousand  dollars 
with  which  we  financed  the  Little  Theatre  Com- 
pany of  Chicago,  in  the  production  of  Gilbert 
Murray's  version  of  the  Trojan  women  by 
Euripides.  The  play  was  given  throughout  the 
country,  including  the  Panama  Exposition  at  San 
Francisco.  The  beautiful  lines  were  beautifully 
rendered.  An  audience  invariably  fell  into  a 
solemn  mood  as  the  age-old  plaint  of  war-weary 
women  cheated  even  of  death,  issued  from  the 
darkened  stage,  reciting  not  the  glory  of  War, 
but  "shame  and  blindness  and  a  world  swallowed 
up  in  night." 

In  March,  19 15,  we  received  an  invitation 
signed  by  Dutch,  British  and  Belgian  women  to 
an  International  Congress  of  Women  to  be  held 
at  The  Hague,  April  28  to  May  i,  at  which  I  was 
asked  to  preside.  The  Congress  was  designed  as 
a  protest  against  war,  in  which  it  was  hoped 
women  from  all  nations  would  join.  I  had  pre- 
viously met  several  of  the  signers  at  the  Interna- 
tional Suffrage  Conference  and  elsewhere.  I 
knew  them  to  be  women  of  great  courage  and 
ability,  and  I  had  long  warmly  admired  Dr.  Al- 
letta  Jacobs  of  Amsterdam,  whose  name  led  the 
list. 

A  delegation  of  forty-seven  women  from  the 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      13 

United  States  accepted  the  invitation,  most  of 
them  members  of  the  new  Women's  Peace  Party. 
All  of  the  delegates  were  obliged  to  pay  their  own 
expenses,  and  to  trust  somewhat  confidingly  to  the 
usefulness  of  the  venture.     We  set  sail  for  Hol- 
land in  the  middle  of  April,  on  the  Dutch  ship 
Noordam,  in  which  we  were  almost  the  only  pas- 
sengers.   We  were  thus  able  to  use  the  salon  for 
daily  conferences  and  lectures  on  the  history  of 
the  Peace  Movement.     As  the  ship,  steadied  by 
a  loose  cargo  of  wheat,  calmly  proceeded  on  her 
way,  our  spirits  rose,  and  all  went  well  until,  with- 
in four  days  of  the  date  set  for  the  opening  of  the 
Conference,  the  Noordam  came  to  a  standstill  in 
the    English    Channel    directly   off    the    chffs    of 
Dover,  where  we  faintly  heard  booming  of  can- 
non, and  saw  air  and  marine  craft  of  every  con- 
ceivable make  and  kind.     The  first  English  news- 
papers which  came  on  board  informed  us  of  the 
sharp  opposition  to  the  holding  of  our  Congress, 
lest  it  weaken  the  morale  of  the  soldiers.       We 
were  called  "Peacettes"  and  the  enterprise  loaded 
with  ridicule  of  the  sort  with  which  we  later  be- 
came only  too  familiar.     During  the  three  days 
the   ship  hung   at   anchor  there  was  much   tele- 
graphing to  all  the  people  of  political  influence 
whom  any  one  of  us  knew  in  England  and  several 
cables  were  sent  to  Washington. 

Whether  due  to  these  or  not,  the  Noordam 


14      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

finally  received  permission  to  proceed  on  her  way 
and  we  landed  in  Rotterdam  two  hours  before  the 
opening  of  the  Congress.  We  from  the  United 
States  were  more  fortunate  than  the  English  del- 
egation. The  North  Sea  had  been  declared 
closed  to  all  traffic  the  very  day  they  were  to  start, 
and  eighty-seven  of  them  waited  at  a  port  during 
the  entire  session  of  The  Hague  Congress,  first 
for  boats  and  later  for  flying  machines,  neither  of 
which  ever  came.  Fortunately  three  English- 
women had  arrived  earlier,  and  made  a  small  but 
most  able  delegation  from  Great  Britain. 

The  delegates  at  the  Congress  represented 
twelve  different  countries;  they  were  all  suffra- 
gists and  believers  in  the  settlement  of  interna- 
tional disputes  by  pacific  means.  Belligerent  as 
well  as  neutral  nations  were  represented,  with 
sometimes  two  thousand  visitors  in  attendance,  all 
of  whom  had  paid  an  entrance  fee  but  were  not  al- 
lowed to  participate  in  the  deliberations.  The 
sessions  were  characterized  by  efficiency  and 
scrupulous  courtesy,  not  without  a  touch  of  dig- 
nity, as  became  the  solemn  theme.  All  discussion 
of  the  causes  of  the  war  and  of  its  conduct  was 
prohibited,  but  discussions  on  the  terms  of  peace 
and  the  possible  prevention  of  future  wars,  were 
carried  on  with  much  intelligence  and  fervor. 

Gradually  the  police,  who  filled  the  galleries  at 
the  first  meetings,  were  withdrawn  as  it  became 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      15 

evident  that  there  was  to  be  no  disturbance  or  un- 
toward excitement.  A  moment  of  great  interest 
was  the  entrance  of  the  two  Belgian  delegates, 
who  shook  hands  with  the  German  delegation  be- 
fore they  took  their  places  beside  them  on  the 
platform,  dedicated  to  "a  passionate  human  sym- 
pathy, not  inconsistent  with  patriotism,  but  tran- 
scending it."  All  the  women  from  the  belligerent 
countries  in  leaving  home  to  attend  the  Congress 
had  dared  ridicule  and  every  sort  of  difficulty; 
they  had  also  met  the  supreme  test  of  a  woman's 
conscience — of  differing  with  those  whom  she 
loves  in  the  hour  of  their  deepest  affliction.  For 
men  in  the  heat  of  war  were  at  the  best  sceptical 
of  the  value  of  the  Congress  and  many  of  them 
were  actually  hostile  to  it;  in  fact  the  delegates 
from  one  of  the  northern  German  cities  were  put 
in  jail  when  they  returned  home,  solely  on  thq 
charge  of  having  attended  a  Congress  in  which 
women  from  the  enemy  countries  were  sitting. 

A  series  of  resolutions  was  very  carefully  drawn 
as  a  result  of  the  three  days'  deliberations.  A 
committee,  consisting  of  two  women  from  each 
country,  called  "The  Women's  International  Com- 
mittee for  Permanent  Peace,"  was  organized  and 
established  headquarters  at  Amsterdam. 

At  its  last  session,  the  Congress  voted  that  its 
resolutions,  especially  the  one  on  a  Conference  of 
Neutrals,  should  be  carried  by  a  delegation  of 


i6      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

women  from  the  neutral  countries  to  the  Premier 
and  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  of  each  of  the 
belHgerent  countries,  and  by  a  delegation  of 
women  from  the  belligerent  countries  to  the  same 
officials  in  the  neutral  nations.  As  a  result  four- 
teen countries  were  visited  in  May  and  June, 
19 1 5,  by  delegates  from  the  Congress. 

As  women,  it  was  possible  for  us,  from  belliger- 
ent and  neutral  nations  alike,  to  carry  forward  an 
interchange  of  question  and  answer  between 
capitals  which  were  barred  to  each  other.  Every- 
where, save  from  one  official  in  France,  we  heard 
the  same  opinion  expressed  by  these  men  of  the 
governments  responsible  for  the  promotion  of  the 
war;  each  one  said  that  his  country  would  be  ready 
to  stop  the  war  immediately  if  some  honorable 
method  of  securing  peace  were  provided;  each  one 
disclaimed  responsibility  for  the  continuance  of 
the  war;  each  one  predicted  European  bankruptcy 
if  the  war  were  prolonged,  and  each  one  grew  pale 
and  distressed  as  he  spoke  of  the  loss  of  his  gallant 
young  countrymen;  two  of  them  with  ill-concealed 
emotion  referred  to  the  loss  of  their  own  sons. 

We  heard  much  the  same  words  spoken  in 
Downing  Street  as  those  spoken  in  Wilhelm- 
strasse,  in  Vienna  as  in  Petrograd,  in  Budapest  as 
in  Havre,  where  the  Belgians  had  their  tem- 
porary government.  "My  country  would  not 
find  anything  unfriendly  in  such  action  by  the  neu- 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      17 

trals,"  was  the  assurance  given  us  by  the  Foreign 
minister  of  one  of  the  great  belligerents.  "My 
Government  would  place  no  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  its  institution,"  said  the  Minister  of  an  oppos- 
ing nation.  "What  are  the  neutrals  waiting 
for?"  said  a  third. 

Our  confidence  as  to  the  feasibility  of  the  plan 
for  a  Conference  of  Neutrals  also  increased. 
"You  are  right,"  said  one  Minister,  "it  would  be 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  finish  the  fight  by 
early  negotiation  rather  than  by  further  military 
efforts,  which  will  only  result  in  more  and  more 
destruction  and  irreparable  loss."  "Yours  is  the 
sanest  proposal  that  has  been  brought  to  this 
office  in  the  last  six  months,"  said  another  Prime 
Minister. 

The  envoys  were  received  by  the  following 
representatives  of  the  belligerent  nations: 

Prime  Minister  Asquith  and  Foreign  Minister 
Grey,  in  London. 

Reichskanzler  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  and 
Foreign  Minister  von  Jagow,  in  Berlin. 

Prime  Minister  Stuergkh,  Foreign  Minister 
Burian,  in  Vienna;  Prime  Minister  Tisza,  in 
Budapest. 

Prime  Minister  Salandra  and  Foreign  Minister 
Sonino,  in  Rome. 

Prime  Minister  Viviani  and  Foreign  Minister 
Delcasse,  in  Paris. 

Foreign  Minister  d' Avignon,  in  Havre. 


i8      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Foreign  Minister  Sasonoff,  in  Petrograd. 

And  by  the  following  representatives  of  neu- 
tral governments: 

Prime  Minister  Cort  van  der  Linden  and  For- 
eign Minister  Loudon,  in  The  Hague. 

Prime  Minister  Zahle  and  Foreign  Minister 
Scavenius,  in  Copenhagen. 

King  Haakon,  Prime  Minister  Knudsen,  For- 
eign Minister  Ihlen,  and  by  Messrs.  Loevland, 
Asrstad  Castberg  and  Jahren,  the  four  presidents 
of  the  Storthing  in  Christiania. 

Foreign  Minister  Wallenberg,  in  Stockholm. 

President  Motta  and  Foreign  Minister  Hoff- 
man, in  Berne. 

President  Wilson  and  Secretary  of  State  Lan- 
sing in  Washington. 

While  in  Rome,  the  delegation  went  unofficially 
— that  is  to  say,  without  a  mandate  from  the  Con- 
gress, to  an  audience  with  the  Pope  and  the 
Cardinal  Secretary  of  State. 

As  I  recall  those  hurried  journeys  which  Alice 
Hamilton  and  I  made  with  Dr.  AUetta  Jacobs  and 
her  friend  Madame  Palthe  to  one  warring  country 
after  another,  it  still  seems  marvelous  to  me  that 
the  people  we  met  were  so  outspoken  against  war, 
with  a  freedom  of  expression  which  was  not  al- 
lowed later  in  any  of  the  belligerent  nations. 
Among  certain  young  men,  such  as  those  editing 
the  Cam-Magazine  in  Cambridge  University, 
there   was   a  veritable   revolt   against  war   and 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      19 

against  the  old  men  responsible  for  it  who,  they 
said,  were  "having  field  days  on  their  own,"  in 
appealing  to  hate,  intolerance  and  revenge  with- 
out fear  of  contradiction  from  the  younger  gener- 
ation. 

We  were  impressed  with  the  fact  that  in  all 
countries  the  enthusiasm  for  continuing  the  war 
was  largely  fed  on  a  fund  of  animosity  growing 
out  of  the  conduct  of  the  war;  England  on  fire 
over  the  atrocities  In  Belgium,  Germany  Indignant 
over  England's  blockade  to  starve  her  women  and 
children.  It  seemed  to  us  in  our  naivete,  al- 
though it  may  be  that  we  were  not  without  a 
homely  wisdom,  that  if  the  Press  could  be 
freed  and  an  adequate  offer  of  negotiations 
made,  the  war  might  be  concluded  before  another 
winter  of  the  terrible  trench  warfare.  However, 
the  three  "envoys"  from  the  United  States,  Emily 
Balch,  Alice  Hamilton  and  myself,  wrote  out  our 
Impressions  as  carefully  as  we  were  able  in  a  little 
book,  so  that  there  is  no  use  in  repeating  them 
here. 

Shortly  after  our  return  the  delegates  from 
Holland,  England  and  Austria  met  with  us  in  the 
United  States,  and  we  issued  what  we  called  a 
manifesto,  urging  once  more  the  calling  of  a  Neu- 
tral Conference  and  giving  our  reasons  therefor. 
This  document  Is  long  since  forgotten,  lost  in  the 
stirring  events  which  followed,  although  at  the 


20      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

time  it  received  a  good  deal  of  favorable  com- 
ment, in  the  press  of  the  neutral  countries  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  perhaps  because  it  was 
difficult  openly  to  oppose  its  modest  recommenda- 
tions. We  were  certainly  well  within  the  truth 
when  we  said  that  "we  bear  evidence  of  a  rising 
desire  and  intention  of  vast  companies  of  people 
in  the  neutral  countries  to  turn  a  barren  disin- 
terestedness into  an  active  goodwill.  In  Sweden, 
for  example,  more  than  400  meetings  were  held 
in  one  day  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  calling 
dn  the  government  to  act. 

"The  excruciating  burden  of  responslbilfty  for 
the  hopeless  continuance  of  this  war  no  longer 
rests  on  the  will  of  the  belligerent  nations  alone. 
It  rests  also  on  the  will  of  those  neutral  govern- 
ments and  people  who  have  been  spared  its  shock 
but  cannot,  if  they  would,  absolve  themselves  from 
their  full  share  of  responsibility  for  the  continu- 
ance of  war." 

The  first  annual  meeting  of  the  Women's  Peace 
Party  was  held  at  Washington  in  January,  19 16. 
The  reports  showed  that  during  the  year  mass 
meetings  had  been  held  all  over  the  country,  much 
material  had  been  sent  out  from  the  central  office 
for  speeches  arranged  for  by  other  public  bodies, 
and  in  addition  to  the  state  branches  there  were 
one  hundred  and  sixty-five  group  memberships, 
totaling  about  forty  thousand  women.     In  becom- 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      21 

ing  a  section  of  the  Women's  International  Com- 
mittee for  Permanent  Peace  we  were  securely 
committed  to  an  international  body  which  at  that 
time  had  well  defined  branches  in  fifteen  countries. 

The  Congressional  program  adopted  at  the  an- 
nual meeting  included  measures  to  oppose  uni- 
versal, compulsory,  military  service;  to  secure  a 
joint  commission  to  deal  with  problems  arising  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  the  Orient;  and  to 
formulate  the  principle  that  foreign  investments 
shall  be  made  without  claim  to  military  protection. 

The  third  annual  meeting  was  held  at  the  end 
of  eleven  months,  in  December  of  19 16,  again  in 
Washington.  The  most  important  feature  of  it 
was  a  conference  on  Oppressed  and  Dependent 
Nationalities,  arranged  by  Miss  Grace  Abbott, 
one  of  our  members,  who  had  had  long  experience 
as  Superintendent  of  the  Immigrant  Protective 
League  of  Chicago. 

The  invitations  to  this  special  conference  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  as  Americans  we  be- 
lieved that  good  government  is  no  substitute  for 
self-government,  and  that  a  federal  form  offers 
the  most  satisfactory  method  of  giving  local  self- 
government  in  a  country  great  in  territory  or  com- 
plex in  population.  How  America's  international 
policies  might  support  or  express  these  principles 
was  the  problem  before  the  conference.  It  was 
believed  that  valuable  advice  could  be  given  by 


22      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

those  citizens  of  the  United  States  who  by  their 
birth  belonged  to  the  dependent  or  oppressed  na- 
tionalities and  who,  through  their  American  ex- 
perience, were  familiar  with  the  workings  of  our 
federal  form  of  government. 

Prominent  representatives  of  the  Poles,  Czecho- 
slovaks, Lithuanians  and  Letts,  Ukrainians,  Jugo- 
slavs, Albanians,  Armenians,  Zionists  and  Irish 
Republicians  were,  for  this  reason,  the  speakers 
at  the  Conference.  All  the  problems  of  conflict- 
ing claims  and  the  creation  of  new  subject  minor- 
ities as  a  result  of  any  territorial  changes  which 
might  be  made,  were  developed  in  the  course  of 
the  Conference.  Disagreement  also  developed 
as  to  the  weight  which  should  be  given  to  historic 
claims  in  the  righting  of  ancient  wrongs  in  con- 
trast to  the  demands  of  a  present  population. 

This  experimental  conference  had  behind  it  a 
very  sound  theory  of  the  contribution  which 
American  experience  might  have  made  toward  a 
reconciliation  of  European  differences  in  advance 
of  the  meeting  of  the  Peace  Conference.  Pro- 
fessor Masaryk,  later  President  of  Czecho-Slo- 
vakia,  attempted  to  accomplish  such  an  end  in  the 
organization  of  the  Central  European  nationali- 
ties, which  actually  came  to  a  tentative  agreement 
in  Philadelphia  more  than  a  year  later. 

Had  the  federal  form  of  government  taken 
hold  of  the  minds  of  the  American  representatives 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      23 

of  various  nationalities  as  strongly  as  did  the  de- 
sire for  self-determination,  or  had  the  latter  been 
coupled  with  an  enthusiasm  for  federation,  many 
of  the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  Peace  Conference 
would  have  been  anticipated.  A  federation 
among  the  succession  states  of  Austria  would  have 
secured  at  the  minimum  a  Customs  Union  and 
might  have  averted  the  most  galling  economic  diffi- 
culties. 

It  was  at  this  third  annual  meeting  in  Washing- 
ton, the  last  held  before  the  United  States  en- 
tered the  war,  that  we  discussed  the  inevitable 
shortage  of  food  throughout  the  world  which  long- 
continued  war  entailed.  For  three  years  we,  like 
many  other  sympathetic  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  had  been  at  times  horribly  oppressed  with 
the  consciousness  that  widespread  famine  had 
once  more  returned  to  the  world.  At  moments 
there  seemed  to  be  no  spot  upon  which  to  rest 
one's  mind  with  a  sense  of  well  being.  One  re- 
called Serbia,  where  three-fourths  of  a  million 
people  out  of  the  total  population  of  three  million, 
had  perished  miserably  of  typhus  and  other  dis- 
eases superinduced  by  long  continued  privations; 
Armenia,  where  in  spite  of  her  heart-breaking 
histor)',  famine  and  pestilence  had  never  stalked 
so  unchecked;  Palestine,  where  the  old  horrors  of 
the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  as  described  by  Josephus, 
had  been  revived;  and  perhaps  the  crowning  hor- 


24      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ror  of  all,  the  **Way  of  the  Cross" — so  called  by 
the  Russians  because  it  was  easily  traced  by  the 
continuous  crosses  raised  over  the  hastily  dug 
graves — beginning  with  the  Galician  thorough- 
fares, and  stretching  south  and  east  for  fourteen 
hundred  miles,  upon  which  a  distracted  peasantry 
ran  breathlessly  until  stopped  by  the  Caspian  Sea, 
or  crossed  the  Ural  Mountains  into  Asia,  only  to 
come  back  again  because  there  was  no  food  there. 

We  pointed  out  in  our  speeches  what  later  be- 
came commonplace  statements  on  hundreds  of 
platforms,  that  although  there  had  been  universal 
bad  harvests  in  191 6,  the  war  itself  was  primari- 
ly responsible  for  the  increasing  dearth  of  food. 
Forty  million  men  were  in  active  army  service, 
twenty  million  men  and  women  were  supporting 
the  armies  by  their  war  activities,  such  as  the 
manufacture  of  munitions,  and  perhaps  as  many 
more  were  in  definite  war  industries,  such  as  ship- 
building. Of  course,  not  all  these  people  were 
before  the  war  directly  engaged  in  producing 
food,  but  many  of  them  were,  and  others  were 
transporting  or  manufacturing  it,  and  their 
wholesale  withdrawal  wrought  havoc  both  in  agri- 
culture and  in  industry. 

The  European  fields,  worked  by  women  and 
children  and  in  certain  sections  by  war  prisoners, 
were  lacking  in  fertilizers  which  could  not  be 
brought  from  remote  ports  nor  be  manufactured 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR      25 

as  usual  in  Europe,  because  nitrates  and  other  such 
materials  essential  to  ammunition  were  being  di- 
verted to  that  use.  The  U-boats  constantly  de- 
stroyed food-carrying  ships,  and  many  remote 
markets  had  become  absolutely  isolated,  so  that 
they  could  no  longer  contribute  their  food  supplies 
to  a  hungry  Europe. 

Mr.  Hoover,  at  the  head  of  the  American  Re- 
lief Committee,  was  then  feeding  approximately 
10,000,000  people  in  Belgium  and  northern 
France,  but  at  that  time  little  more  was  attempted 
in  the  feeding  of  civilian  populations.  Yet 
thousands  of  Americans  were  already  finding  this 
consciousness  of  starvation  among  European 
women  and  children  increasingly  hard  to  bear. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  PLUS  THE  FORD  SHIP. 

In  the  fall  of  19 15,  after  we  had  written  our 
so-called  "Manifesto,"  a  meeting  of  the  Woman's 
Peace  Party  was  called  in  New  York  City,  at 
which  we  were  obliged  to  make  the  discouraging 
report  that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  accredited 
officials  of  the  leading  belligerent  nations,  namely, 
Great  Britain,  France,  Russia,  Belgium,  Italy, 
Germany,  Austria  and  Hungary,  had  expressed  a 
willingness  to  cooperate  in  a  Neutral  Conference, 
and  while  the  neutral  nations,  Norway,  Sweden, 
Denmark,  and  Holland  had  been  eager  to  partici- 
pate in  the  proposed  conference  if  it  could  be 
called  by  the  United  States,  our  own  country  was 
most  reluctant.  There  seemed  to  us  then  to  be 
two  reasons  for  this  reluctance;  first  that  the 
United  States  could  not  call  a  neutral  conference 
and  ignore  the  South  American  countries,  although 
to  include  even  the  largest  of  them  would  make 
too  large  a  body,  and  secondly,  that  as  the  Cen- 
tral Powers  had  at  that  moment  the  technical 
military  advantage,  such  a  conference,  if  convened 
at  all,  should  not  be  summoned  until  the  military 

26 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  27 

situation  was  more  balanced.  We  thought  that 
we  had  adequately  replied  to  both  of  these  ob- 
jections, but  because  of  them  or  for  other  reasons 
President  Wilson  would  not  consider  the  proposi- 
tion, nor  was  his  attitude  in  the  least  changed 
later  when  one  of  our  members  came  from  a  small 
European  neutral  country  with  the  accredited 
proposition  that  her  nation  would  call  such  a  con- 
ference if  it  could  be  assured  of  the  participation 
of  the  United  States. 

We  seemed  to  have  come  to  an  Impasse  there- 
fore, so  far  as  calling  a  conference  of  neutrals  was 
concerned  unless  we  could  bring  to  bear  a  tremen- 
dous pressure  of  public  opinion  upon  the  officials 
in  Washington.  The  newspapers  were,  of  course, 
closed  to  us  so  far  as  seriously  advocating  such 
a  conference  was  concerned,  although  they  were 
only  too  ready  to  seize  upon  any  pretext  which 
might  make  the  effort  appear  absurd.  We  made 
one  more  attempt  to  Induce  the  President  to  act,  an 
attempt  made  possible  through  the  generosity  of 
Mrs.  Henry  Ford.  She  sent  us  a  contribution  of 
$5,000.00  which  she  afterwards  Increased  to 
$8,000.00  and  the  entire  sum  was  spent  upon  tele- 
grams issued  from  New  York  and  Chicago  to 
eight  thousand  women,  every  one  of  whom  was 
either  the  chairman  or  secretary  of  a  woman's 
organization,  asking  her  to  urge  the  President  to 
call  a  conference  of  neutrals  as  an  attempt  to  end 


28     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

the  slaughter  in  Europe.  These  women's  organ- 
izations included  mutual  benefit  societies,  all 
sorts  of  Church  organizations,  women's  clubs  and 
many  others.  The  telegrams  we  sent  averaged 
in  cost  $1.00  each.  Of  course  we  did  not  pay  for 
the  telegrams  which  we  asked  should  be  sent  to 
President  Wilson.  He  received  about  two  thou- 
sand more  than  the  number  of  our  requests;  they 
poured  in  at  such  a  rate  for  three  days  that  the 
office  in  Washington  was  obliged  to  engage  two 
extra  clerks  who  doubtless  possessed  the  only  pairs 
of  eyes  which  ever  saw  the  telegrams.  Neverthe- 
less, ten  thousand  women's  organizations  had 
learned  that  there  was  a  project  for  a  conference 
of  neutrals  and  they  had  for  a  moment  at  least  the 
comfort  of  knowing  that  a  suggestion  was  being 
made  which  might  result  in  arresting  the  blood- 
shed. 

At  this  time  an  unexpected  development  gave 
the  conference  of  neutrals  only  too  much  publicity 
and  produced  a  season  of  great  hilarity  for  the 
newspaper  men  of  two  continents.  Madame  Ro- 
sika  Schwimmer,  who  still  remained  in  the  United 
States,  had  lectured  in  Detroit  where  she  had 
been  introduced  to  Mr.  Henry  Ford.  For  many 
months  Mr.  Ford  had  maintained  a  personal  rep- 
resentative in  Washington  to  keep  him  informed 
of  possible  openings  for  making  peace  with  the 
understanding  that  such  efforts  "should  not  be 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  29 

mere  talk  nor  education."  During  a  long  inter- 
view which  Madame  Schwimmer  held  with  Mr. 
Ford  and  his  wife,  he  expressed  his  willingness 
to  finance  the  plan  of  a  neutral  conference  and 
promised  to  meet  her  in  New  York  in  regard  to 
it.  He  arrived  in  New  York  the  very  day  the  con- 
ference of  the  Women's  Peace  Party  adjourned 
and  he  met  with  a  small  committee  the  same  eve- 
ning. Up  to  that  moment  all  our  efforts  had 
been  bent  towards  securing  a  conference  supported 
by  neutral  governments  who  should  send  repre- 
sentatives to  the  body;  but  as  it  gradually  became 
clear  that  the  governments  would  not  act,  we 
hoped  that  a  sum  large  enough  to  defray  all  the 
general  expenses  of  such  a  conference  might  ini- 
tiate it  as  a  private  enterprise. 

It  is  easy  to  forget  the  state  of  the  public  mind 
at  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  the  great  war.  At 
that  moment  much  was  said  in  regard  to  the  un- 
willingness of  both  sides  to  "dig  in"  for  another 
winter  of  trench  warfare,  and  a  statement  was 
constantly  repeated  that,  on  the  western  front 
alone  during  an  average  day  when  no  military  posi- 
tion had  been  changed,  the  loss  was  still  three 
thousand  men.  We  knew  how  concerned  the  re- 
sponsible statesmen  in  each  country  were  about 
this  destruction  of  young  life,  and  there  were 
many  proofs  that  the  very  sense  of  modern  effi- 
ciency so  carefully  fostered  in  one  industrial  coun- 


30      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

try  after  another,  was  steadily  being  outraged. 
The  first  Christmas  of  the  war  the  Pope  had 
made  a  touching,  although  futile  appeal  for  a 
cessation  of  hostilities;  It  might  be  possible  that 
as  the  second  Christmas  approached,  men's  minds 
would  be  open  to  a  proposition  looking  towards 
the  gradual  substitution  of  adjudication  for  mili- 
tary methods.  It  Is  very  difficult  after  five  years 
of  war  to  recall  the  attitude  of  most  normal  peo- 
ple during  those  first  years.  Such  people  had  not 
yet  acknowledged  the  necessity  and  propriety  of 
war,  their  mental  processes  were  not  yet  so  in- 
hibited but  that  many  of  them  still  believed  that 
It  might  be  possible  to  clarify  the  atmosphere,  and 
to  find  a  way  out  of  the  desperate  situation  In 
which  Europe  found  Itself.  At  least  the  begin- 
nings of  a  solution  might  be  found  by  the  constant 
exercise  of  such  judgment  as  carefully  selected 
men  from  the  neutral  countries  might  be  able  to 
bring  to  bear.  Such  a  conference  sitting  continu- 
ously would  take  up  one  possibility  after  another 
for  beginning  peace  negotiations.  It  was  further 
hoped  by  the  most  sanguine  that  such  a  confer- 
ence, If  successful,  might  undertake  the  interna- 
tional administration  of  the  territory  conquered 
by  either  side  until  its  final  disposition  was  deter- 
mined upon;  thus  the  allied  side  would  turn  over 
to  It  the  German  colonies  in  South  Africa,  the 
Central  Powers  such  parts  of  Belgium  and  North- 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  31 

ern  France  as  they  then  occupied,  and  Russia  the 
portions  of  Galicia  she  was  then  holding.  At  the 
end  of  the  war  there  would  be  in  actual  operation 
an  international  body  similar  to  that  constituted  at 
Algeciras  or  to  that  since  advocated  by  the  League 
of  Nations  in  regard  to  the  determination  of  man- 
dates. It  would  be  developed  into  the  beginnings 
of  a  de  facto  international  government.  It  might 
bring  hope  to  certain  soldiers  on  both  sides  of  the 
conflict  who  were  confessedly  fighting  on  dogged- 
ly day  after  day  because  they  saw  no  one  able 
to  detach  them  from  it.  There  were  thousands 
of  "loyal"  Americans  who  in  19 15  sincerely 
wished  to  see  the  carnage  stopped  and  Europe 
once  more  reconstructed;  they  knew  that  the 
longer  the  war  lasted  the  harder  it  would  be  to 
make  peace  and  that  each  month  of  war  inevitably 
tended  to  involve  more  nations.  They  were 
amazed  at  the  futile  efforts  of  European  states- 
men, at  their  willingness  and  at  moments  their 
apparent  eagerness  to  hand  their  functions  over 
to  military  men,  and  at  their  craven  acceptance 
as  inevitable  of  much  which  might  conceivably 
be  changed.  Many  people  went  about  day  after 
day  with  an  oppressive  sense  of  the  horrible  dis- 
aster which  had  befallen  the  world  and  woke  up 
many  times  during  the  night  as  from  a  hideous 
nightmare.  Men  must  have  felt  like  this  during 
the  time  of  pestilence,  in  the  fourteenth  century 


32      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

for  instance,  when  the  bubonic  plague  destroyed 
about  thirty-five  million  people  in  Europe,  and  no 
determined  and  intelligent  effort  was  made  to  stop 
it.  The  youth  in  many  of  the  belligerent  countries 
had  been  sent  to  war  by  men  put  in  office  through 
slight  majorities  won  in  elections  based  upon  pure- 
ly domestic  issues.  Yet  here  they  were  at  the  be- 
hest and  determination  of  the  men  thus  elected, 
often  against  their  own  convictions  and  instincts, 
ranged  against  each  other  in  long-drawn  battle 
with  but  one  inevitable  issue.  There  must  be  a 
residuum  of  kindliness  and  good  sense  somewhere 
in  the  world !  It  was  customary  at  that  time  to 
ask  the  opponent  of  war  what  he  would  have  done 
had  he  been  in  France  when  the  German  war  ma- 
chine threatened  her  very  existence.  We  could 
only  reply  that  we  were  not  criticizing  France, 
that  we  had  every  admiration  for  her,gallant  cour- 
age, but  that  what  we  were  urging  at  that  mo- 
ment was  the  cessation  of  hostilities  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  another  method.  Was  a  group  of  men 
living  in  Prussia,  who  had  urged  the  development 
and  perfection  of  a  military  machine  which,  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  must  in  the  course 
of  time  be  put  into  operation,  to  be  allowed  to 
determine  the  future  of  all  the  young  men  in 
Europe?  Would  not  the  system  of  conscription, 
spread  to  England  and  her  colonies  overseas,  but 
increase  the  practice  of  militarism? 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  33 

Our  hopes  were  high  that  evening  in  New  York 
as  we  talked  over  the  possible  men  and  a  few 
women  from  tlie  Scandinavian  countries,  from 
Holland  and  Switzerland,  who  possessed  the  inter- 
national mind  and  might  lend  themselves  to  the 
plan  of  a  neutral  conference.  We  were  quite 
worldly  enough  to  see  that  we  should  have  to  be- 
gin with  some  well-known  Americans,  but  we  were 
confident  that  at  least  a  half  dozen  of  them  with 
whom  we  had  already  discussed  the  plan,  would  be 
ready  to  go.  Mr.  Ford  took  a  night  train  to 
Washington  to  meet  an  appointment  with  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  perhaps  still  hoping  that  the  plan 
might  receive  some  governmental  sanction  and 
at  least  wishing  to  be  assured  that,  as  a  private 
enterprise,  it  would  not  embarrass  the  government. 

During  the  day,  as  I  went  about  New  York  in 
the  interest  of  other  affairs  and  as  yet  saying  noth- 
ing of  the  new  plan,  it  seemed  to  me  that  perhaps 
it  was  in  character  that  the  effort  from  the  United 
States  should  be  initiated  not  by  the  government 
but  by  a  self-made  business  man  who  approached 
the  situation  from  a  purely  human  point  of  view, 
almost  as  a  working  man  would  have  done.  On 
the  evening  after  his  return  from  Washington  Mr. 
Ford  reported  that  the  President  had  declared 
him  quite  within  his  rights  in  financing  a  neutral 
conference  and  had  wished  all  success  to  the  enter- 
prise. 


34     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

The  difficulties,  however,  began  that  very  eve- 
ning when  Mr.  Ford  asked  his  business  agent  to 
show  us  the  papers  which  chartered  the  Nor- 
wegian boat  Oscar  II  for  her  next  trans-Atlantic 
voyage.  Some  of  the  people  attending  the  com- 
mittee meeting  evidently  knew  of  this  plan,  but  I 
was  at  once  alarmed,  insisting  that  it  would  be 
easy  enough  for  the  members  of  the  conference 
to  travel  to  Stockholm  or  The  Hague  by  various 
steamship  lines,  paying  their  own  expenses;  that 
we  needed  Mr.  Ford's  help  primarily  in  organiz- 
ing a  conference  but  not  in  transporting  the  peo- 
ple. Mr.  Ford's  response  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  more  publicity  the  better  and  that  the  sailing 
of  the  ship  itself  would  make  known  the  confer- 
ence more  effectively  than  any  other  method  could 
possibly  do.  After  that  affairs  moved  rapidly. 
Mr.  Louis  Lochner  came  on  from  Chicago  to  act 
as  secretary  to  the  undertaking,  which  was  estab- 
lished with  its  own  headquarters  in  New  York. 
An  attempt  the  very  first  day  to  organize  a  com- 
mittee who  should  be  responsible  for  selecting  the 
personnel  of  the  conference  proved  difficult,  Mr. 
Ford  himself  was  eager  to  issue  the  invitations  and 
had  begun  with  two  of  his  oldest  and  best  friends, 
John  Burroughs  and  Thomas  A.  Edison.  At  the 
very  first,  a  group  of  college  young  people  pre- 
sented a  list  of  students,  limited  to  two  from  each 
of  the  leading  colleges  and  universities  whom  they 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  35 

wished  to  have  invited.  We  pointed  out  that  these 
could  hardly  hope  to  be  of  direct  value  to  the 
conference  itself,  but  it  was  hard  to  set  aside  the 
reply  that  what  was  needed  was  not  only  efforts 
at  adjudication  by  a  well-considered  conference 
of  elders  but  also  the  warmth  and  reassurance 
which  youth  would  bring  to  the  enterprise.  The 
youthful  advocates  also  believed  that  their 
demonstration  might  evoke  a  compunction  among 
the  elderly  statesmen  responsible  for  the  war  who, 
by  calling  any  such  remonstrance  treason,  had  ab- 
solutely inhibited  pacifist  youth  in  Europe  from 
expression  of  opinion.  There  was  also  much  feel- 
ing at  the  moment  among  certain  students  in  Amer- 
ican universities  over  the  suppression  in  England 
of  the  Cambridge  Magazine  whose  editorial  policy 
had  been  consistently  anti-military,  and  over  the 
fact  that  Bertrand  Russell  had  been  asked  to  re- 
sign from  Cambridge  University. 

A  college  group  was  finally  invited  and  later 
proved  a  somewhat  embarrassing  factor  in  the 
enterprise.  I  left  for  Chicago  before  the  flood  of 
invitations  were  sent;  many  of  them  were  ad- 
dressed to  honest,  devoted,  and  also  distinguished 
people,  although  the  offer  of  a  crusading  journey 
to  Europe  with  all  expenses  paid  could  but  at- 
tract many  fanatical  and  Impecunious  reformers. 

Almost  immediately  upon  my  return  to  Chi- 
cago, ten  days  before  the  Oscar  II  sailed,  the 


36     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

newspaper  accounts  from  New  York  began  to  be 
most  disquieting.  We  had  not  expected  any  ac- 
tual cooperation  from  the  newspapers,  but  mak- 
ing all  allowances  for  that,  the  enterprise  seemed 
to  be  exhibiting  unfortunate  aspects.  The  con- 
ference itself  was  seldom  mentioned,  but  the 
journey  and  the  ship  were  made  all  important  and 
mysterious  people  with  whom  Madame  Schwim- 
mer  was  said  to  be  in  communication,  were  con- 
stantly featured.  The  day  when  Mr.  Ford's  slo- 
gan "Get  the  Boys  out  of  the  trenches  by  Christ- 
mas" was  spread  all  over  the  front  pages  of  the 
dailies  I  spent  large  sums  of  money  telephoning 
to  the  secretary  in  New  York  begging  him  to  keep 
to  the  enterprise  in  hand,  which  I  reminded  him 
was  the  conference  of  neutrals.  Having  so  re- 
cently traveled  in  Europe  under  wartime  regula- 
tions, I  knew  that  such  propaganda  would  be  con- 
sidered treasonable  and  put  the  enterprise  in  a 
very  dangerous  position.  Mr.  Lochner  reminded 
me  of  Mr.  Ford's  well-known  belief  that  direct 
appeal  to  the  "the  boys"  was  worth  much  more 
than  the  roundabout  educational  methods  we  were 
advocating.  Almost  simultaneously  with  this  un- 
toward development  the  secretary  received  the 
resignations  of  three  leading  internationalists 
who  had  seriously  considered  going,  and  of  two 
others  who  had  but  recently  accepted.  They  had 
all  been  convinced  of  the  possible  usefulness  of 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  37 

a  conference  of  neutrals,  at  least  to  the  extent  of 
giving  "continuous  mediation"  a  trial,  but  they 
had  become  absolutely  disconcerted  by  the  ex- 
traneous developments  of  the  enterprise.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  people  in  New  York  in  charge  of 
the  enterprise  believed  that  the  anti-war  move- 
ment throughout  its  history  had  been  too  quiet— 
istic  and  much  too  grey  and  negative;  that  the 
heroic  aspect  of  life  had  been  too  completely 
handed  over  to  war,  leaving  pacifists  under  the 
suspicion  that  they  cared  for  safety  first  and  cher- 
ished survival  above  all  else;  that  a  demonstration 
was  needed,  even  a  spectacular  one  to  show  that 
ardor  and  comradeship  were  exhibited  by  the  non- 
militarists  as  well;  in  fact,  it  was  the  pacifists 
who  believed  that  life  itself  was  so  glorious  an 
adventure  that  the  youth  of  one  nation  had  no 
right  to  deprive  the  youth  of  another  nation  of 
their  share  in  it;  that  living  itself,  which  all  youth 
had  in  common,  was  larger  and  more  inclusive 
than  the  nationalistic  differences  so  unfairly 
stressed  by  their  elders. 

I  was  fifty-five  years  old  in  1915 ;  I  had  already 
"learned  from  life,"  to  use  Dante's  great  phrase, 
that  moral  results  are  often  obtained  through  the 
most  unexpected  agencies;  that  it  is  very  easy  to 
misjudge  the  value  of  an  undertaking  by  a  criti- 
cal or  unfair  estimate  of  the  temperament  and 
ability  of  those  undertaking  It.    It  was  quite  pos- 


38     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

sible  that  with  Mr.  Ford's  personal  knowledge  of 
the  rank  and  file  of  working  men  he  had  shrewdly 
interpreted  the  situation,  that  he  understood  the 
soldier  who  was  least  responsible  for  the  war  and 
could  refuse  to  continue  only  if  the  appeal  came 
simultaneously  to  both  sides.  The  bulk  of  the  sol- 
diers in  every  army  are  men  who  ordinarily  work 
with  their  hands  in  industry,  in  transportation  and 
in  agriculture.  We  had  been  told,  only  the  month 
before,  of  the  response  on  the  part  of  the  Eng- 
lish soldiers  when  governmental  officials  had  been 
sent  to  France  to  go  through  the  trenches  in  order 
to  find  skilled  mechanics  to  work  in  the  arsenals 
and  munition  factories  which  had  been  found  to 
be  such  an  important  factor  in  modern  warfare. 
How  eagerly  the  men  confessed,  when  there  was 
no  question  of  lack  of  patriotism  involved,  that 
they  had  longed  for  the  feel  of  tools  in  their 
hands,  that  they  had  felt  disconnected  and  un- 
happy. Possibly  what  Mr.  Veblen  calls  "the  in- 
stinct of  workmanship"  asserted  itself  in  mute  but 
powerful  rebellion  through  their  very  muscles  and 
nerves  against  the  work  of  destruction  to  which 
their  skilled  hands  were  set.  Was  the  appeal 
which  Mr.  Ford  was  making  more  natural  and 
normal,  more  fitted  to  the  situation  than  that 
which  we  had  so  eagerly  been  advocating?  At 
any  rate  the  situation  was  taken  quite  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  original  promoters,  for  among  other 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  39 

things  which  Mr.  Ford  had  gained  from  his  wide 
experience  was  an  overwhelming  belief  in  the 
value  of  advertising;  even  derision  was  better 
than  no  "story"  at  all.  Partly  in  pursuance  of 
this  policy,  partly  because  they  themselves  were 
clamorous,  no  fewer  than  sixty-four  newspaper 
men  finally  sailed  on  the  Oscar  II. 

During  the  days  of  my  preparation  for  the 
journey,  which  was  largely  an  assembling  of  warm 
clothing,  for  there  was  little  fuel  in  the  Scandi- 
navian countries  even  then  and  we  were  to  land 
in  December,  I  tried  to  make  my  position  clear 
to  remonstrating  friends.  Admitting  the  plan  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Ford  who  had  long 
taken  an  inexplicable  position  in  regard  to  peace 
propaganda,  and  that  with  many  notable  excep- 
tions, a  group  of  very  eccentric  people  had  at- 
tached themselves  to  the  enterprise,  so  that  there 
was  every  chance  for  a  fiasco,  I  still  felt  com- 
mitted to  it  and  believed  that  at  the  worst  it  would 
be  a  protest  from  the  rank  and  file  of  America, 
young  and  old,  learned  and  simple,  against  the 
continuation  of  the  war  which  in  Europe  was  more 
and  more  being  then  regarded  as  inevitable.  I 
was  so  convinced  of  the  essential  soundness  of  the 
conference  of  neutrals  and  so  confident  of  Euro- 
pean participation,  that  I  was  inclined  to  consider 
the  sensational  and  unfortunate  journey  of  the 
American  contingent  as  a  mere  incident  to  the 


40     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

undertaking,  for  after  all  the  actual  foundations 
of  the  conference  itself  would  have  to  be  laid  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  It  became  clearer 
every  day  that  whoever  became  associated  with 
the  ship  would  be  in  for  much  ridicule  and  social 
opprobrium,  but  that  of  course  seemed  a  small 
price  to  pay  for  a  protest  against  war.  Even  in 
Mr.  Ford's  much  repeated  slogan  to  "come  out 
of  the  trenches"  there  was  a  touch  of  what  might 
be  called  the  Christian  method,  "cease  to  do  evil," 
you  yourself,  just  where  you  are,  whatever  the 
heads  of  the  church  and  state  may  dictate.  Whole 
pages  of  Tolstoy's  reaction  to  the  simple  Chris- 
tian teaching  raced  through  my  mind;  was  this 
slogan  a  slangy  20th  century  version  of  the  same 
decisive  appeal? 

What  my  interpretation  of  the  enterprise  would 
have  been,  had  I  become  part  of  it,  is  of  course 
impossible  to  state,  for  on  the  eve  of  leaving 
home,  a  serious  malady  which  had  pursued  me 
from  childhood  reappeared  and  I  was  lying  in 
a  hospital  bed  in  Chicago  not  only  during  the 
voyage  of  the  Oscar  II,  but  during  the  follow- 
ing weeks  when  the  Neutral  Conference  was  ac- 
tually established  In  Stockholm. 

It  is  useless  to  speculate  on  what  might  have 
occurred  at  various  times  but  for  our  physical  limi- 
tations; we  must,  perforce,  accommodate  our- 
selves to  them,  and  it  is  never  easy,  although  I 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  41 

had  had  the  training  which  comes  to  a  child  with 
"spinal  disease,"  as  it  was  called  in  my  youth. 

Madame  Schwimmer,  who,  as  a  journalist  and 
suffrage  organizer,  had  had  wide  experience  in 
many  European  countries  outside  of  Hungary,  was 
convinced  that  the  neutral  conference  would  not 
succeed  unless  it  had  back  of  it  the  imaginative 
interest  of  the  common  people  throughout  Europe. 
She  therefore  arranged  that  formal  receptions 
should  be  accorded  to  the  party  in  the  four  neutral 
countries  of  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark  and  Hol- 
land. The  entire  expedition,  so  far  as  she  con- 
ducted it,  was  in  the  grand  manner  for  she  be- 
heved,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  the  drooping  Peace 
Movement  needed  the  prestige  and  reassurance 
that  such  a  policy  would  bring  to  it.  Unfortunate- 
ly the  policy  exposed  her  both  to  the  charge  of 
extravagance  and  of  having  manufactured  a 
claque. 

Difficulties  developed  during  the  journey;  Mr. 
Ford  left  a  few  days  after  the  group  arrived  in 
Norway,  in  the  midst  of  journalistic  misrepre- 
sentations and  Madame  Schwimmer  resigned 
from  the  Conference,  during  the  early  months  of 
its  existence.  But  in  spite  of  disasters  the  Neu- 
tral Conference  was  finally  set  up  at  Stockholm, 
on  January  26,  19 16,  after  the  Burgomaster  of 
the  city  had  introduced  an  interpellation  in  the 
Rikstag,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  asking  the 


42     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Swedish  Government  to  define  Its  attitude  on  neu- 
tral mediation. 

Gradually  the  personnel  was  completed  by  five 
representatives  each  from  Denmark,  Holland, 
Norway,  Sweden  and  Switzerland,  with  three  from 
the  United  States.  Among  the  Europeans  were 
Professors  of  International  Law,  of  Economics, 
of  Philosophy,  the  legal  advisor  to  the  Nobel  In- 
stitute, men  and  women  who  were  officers  of  Na- 
tional Peace  Societies,  members  of  Parliament  and 
city  officials.  They  first  issued  a  carefully  con- 
sidered appeal  addressed  "To  the  Governments 
and  Parliaments  of  the  Neutral  Nations  repre- 
sented at  the  second  Hague  Conference"  begging 
them  to  offer  official  mediation,  and  quoting  from 
The  Hague  Conventions  to  show  that  such  an 
offer  could  not  be  construed  as  an  unfriendly  act. 

This  appeal  was  given  general  publicity  by  the 
European  Press,  even  in  the  belligerent  countries, 
and  at  least  served  to  draw  attention  once  more 
to  the  fact  that  a  continuation  of  the  war  was  not 
necessarily  inevitable.  Resolutions  based  on  the 
appeal  were  considered  by  three  National  Parlia- 
ments, and  the  appeal  itself  was  discussed  at  a 
formal  meeting  of  the  Prime  Ministers  of  the 
three    Scandinavian   countries. 

At  Easter,  19 16,  the  Conference  issued  an  ap- 
peal to  "The  Governments,  Parliaments  and  Peo- 
ple of  Belligerent  Nations."    This  was  the  result 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  43 

of  much  study,  and  was  founded  upon  an  intelli- 
gent effort  to  obtain  the  various  nationalistic 
points  of  view.  An  enormous  correspondence  on 
the  subject  had  taken  place,  and  representatives 
of  many  nationalities  had  appeared  before  the 
Conference;  these  ranged  from  the  accredited 
governmental  officials  to  the  Esthonian  peasant 
who  came  on  skiis,  many  miles  over  the  ice  and 
snow,  crossing  the  frontier  at  the  risk  of  his  life, 
not  daring  even  to  tell  his  name,  and  wishing  the 
bare  fact  of  his  appearance  to  be  suppressed,  until 
he  should  have  had  time  to  return  to  his  own 
country.  He  added  one  more  to  the  tragic  peti- 
tions, received  from  all  parts  of  Europe.  This 
official  appeal  to  the  belligerent  nations,  foreshad- 
owing the  famous  fourteen  points,  was  also  widely 
published. 

The  Conference  of  Neutrals,  reorganized  into 
an  International  Commission  devoted  to  promot- 
ing the  public  opinion  necessary  for  a  lasting  peace 
whenever  the  governments  should  be  ready  to  act, 
had  much  to  do  with  stimulating  general  meetings 
held  in  all  the  neutral  countries  on  Hague  Day, 
May  1 8th,  and  again  on  the  second  anniversary 
of  the  war  in  August.  George  Brandes  of  Den- 
mark, wrote  a  stirring  appeal  for  Peace,  as  did 
the  poets  and  writers  of  various  countries,  in- 
cluding Ellen  Key  and  Selma  Lagerlof.  For  the 
moment  a  demand  for  the  cessation  of  the  war  be- 


44      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

came  vocal,  at  least  in  those  countries  where  such 
demands  were  not  officially  suppressed. 

Because  the  beginning  of  actual  mediation, 
founded  upon  visits  between  citizens  from  the  bel- 
ligerent nations  with  those  from  the  neutral  must 
of  necessity  be  conducted  quietly,  the  Conference 
finally  left  two  of  its  members  in  each  of  the  five 
neutral  countries,  with  its  headquarters  at  The 
Hague,  where  the  two  delegates  from  the  United 
States  were  established. 

When  Louis  Lochner  came  back  to  the  United 
States  in  October,  191 6,  he  was  able  to  give  an 
enthusiastic  report.  He  arrived  in  the  midst  of 
the  "he  kept  us  out  of  war"  Presidential  campaign. 
The  Democratic  Party  in  the  very  convention 
which  re-nominated  President  Wilson  and  drew 
the  Party  Platform,  had  endorsed  a  League  of 
Nations  policy.  Mr.  Lochner  reported  that  even 
the  Germans  were  ready  for  international  dis- 
armament, and  that  the  question  on  everybody's 
lips  was  "how  soon  will  Wilson  act?"  We  were 
sure  that  Mr,  Wilson  would  act  in  his  own  best 
way,  and  were  most  anxious  not  to  take  the  atti- 
tude towards  him  by  which  the  Abolitionist  so 
constantly  embarrassed  President  Lincoln  during 
the  Civil  War. 

Mr.  Ford  at  that  time  was  guaranteeing  to  the 
Conference  a  steady  income  of  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars a  month,  the  first  difficulties  had  subsided 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  45 

and  the  movement  was  constantly  gaining  prestige. 
The  Norway  delegation,  for  instance,  then  con- 
sisting of  Christian  Lange,  general  secretary  of 
the  Interparliamentary  Union;  Dr.  Horgenstierne, 
president  of  the  University  of  Christiania,  and 
Haakon  Loeken,  state's  attorney  for  Christiania. 
This  personnel  was  not  unlike  that  of  the  other 
countries. 

On  December  10,  19 16,  President  Wilson  is- 
sued his  famous  Peace  Note,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
at  last  the  world  were  breathing  another  air.  For 
the  time  being  the  pacifists  were  almost  popular, 
or  at  least  felt  a  momentary  lift  of  the  curious 
strain  which  inevitably  comes  to  him  who  finds 
himself  differing  with  every  one  about  him. 

In  January  of  19 17,  Mr.  Lochner  returned 
again  to  the  United  States  in  company  with  the 
man  who  had  been  engaged  in  negotiations  with 
Great  Britain,  and  saw  the  President  twice.  I 
was  ill  and  confined  to  my  room  at  this  time.  But 
in  a  long  conversation  which  I  had  with  Mr.  Loch- 
ner in  Chicago,  as  he  reported  recent  interviews 
with  Mr.  Ford  and  his  secretaries,  it  was  evident 
that  the  benefactor  of  the  Neutral  Conference  was 
reflecting  the  change  in  public  opinion,  and  like 
many  another  pacifist,  who  does  not  believe  in 
war  as  such,  was  nevertheless  making  an  excep- 
tion of  "this  war."  In  February  Mr.  Ford's 
changed    position    was    unmistakable.      He    an- 


46     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

nounced  that  he  would  give  no  more  support  to 
the  European  undertaking  after  March  first,  and 
he  withdrew  from  the  Neutral  Conference  plan 
almost  as  abruptly  as  he  had  entered  it. 

Thus  came  to  an  end  all  our  hopes  for  a  Confer- 
ence of  Neutrals  devoted  to  continuous  mediation. 
Our  women's  organizations  as  such  had  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  "Ford  Ship,"  but  of  course  we 
had  assiduously  urged  the  Conference  which  it  was 
designed  to  serve,  and  our  members  in  many  coun- 
tries had  promoted  the  de  facto  Conference.  Cer- 
tainly no  one  could  justly  charge  us  with  "passiv- 
ity" in  our  efforts  to  secure  it. 

During  my  long  days  of  invalidism  in  California 
the  following  spring,  I  had  plenty  of  time  to  anal- 
yze the  situation.  Had  we  been  over-persistent, 
so  eager  for  the  grapes  that  we  were  willing  to 
gather  thistles,  had  our  identification  with  the 
sensational  Peace  Ship  been  an  exhibition  of  moral 
daring  or  merely  an  example  of  woeful  lack  of 
judgment?  When  I  contrasted  the  Ford  under- 
taking with  another  International  Peace  Move- 
ment absolutely  free  from  any  sensationalism,  I 
found  that  the  latter  had  been  scarcely  more  suc- 
cessful :  The  Minimum  Program  Committee  had 
been  supported  by  pacifists  from  many  countries. 
It  was  inaugurated  in  the  spring  of  19 15  at  a  con- 
ference composed  of  distinguished  men  and  women 
held  at  The  Hague,  where  it  established  perman- 


THE  NEUTRAL  CONFERENCE  47 

ent  headquarters.  It  had  put  forward  a  rational 
program,  and  had  kept  afive  the  hopes  for  an  or- 
dered world,  functioning  throughout  the  war  and 
for  two  years  following  with  no  act  of  indiscretion. 
It  was,  in  fact,  so  cautious  that  at  a  dinner  in 
New  York  which  I  attended  as  a  member  of  the 
American  Committee  of  lOO,  certain  officers, 
alarmed  at  the  remote  connection  with  the  Ford 
Ship  which  Mr.  Lochner's  presence  there  indi- 
cated, asked  him  to  resign.  To  them,  as  to  so 
many  millions  of  their  fellow  citizens,  the  slogan 
that  "this  is  a  war  to  end  war"  and  the  hope  that 
the  Peace  Commission  would  provide  for  an  en- 
during peace,  were  convincing.  They  did  not  real- 
ize how  old  the  slogan  was,  nor  how  many  times 
it  had  lured  men  into  condoning  war. 

California  also  afforded  time  for  reading  books 
in  which  it  was  easy  to  discover  that  never  had 
so  much  been  said  about  bringing  war  to  an  end 
forevermore,  as  by  the  group  of  Allied  Nations 
who  waged  the  last  campaign  against  Napoleon. 
They  declared  in  the  grandiloquent  phrases  they 
used  so  easily  that  their  aims  were  "the  recon- 
struction of  the  moral  order,"  "a  regeneration  of 
the  political  system  of  Europe,"  and  "the  estab- 
lishment of  an  enduring  peace  founded  upon  a  just 
redistribution  of  political  forces."  But  Napoleon 
was  "crushed"  and  none  of  their  moral  hopes  were 
fulfilled.    They  too  were  faced  at  the  end  of  the 


48     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

war,  as  are  the  victors  and  vanquished  of  every 
war,  by  unimaginable  suffering,  by  economic  ruin, 
by  the  irreparable  loss  of  thousands  of  young  men, 
by  the  set  back  of  orderly  progress. 

As  the  Great  War  incredibly  continued  year 
after  year,  as  the  entrance  of  one  nation  after  an- 
other increased  the  number  of  young  combatants, 
as  the  war  propaganda  grew  ever  more  bitter  and 
irrational,  there  were  moments  when  we  were  ac- 
tually grateful  for  every  kind  of  effort  we  had 
made.  At  such  times,  the  consciousness  of  social 
opprobrium,  of  having  become  an  easy  mark  for 
the  cheapest  comment,  even  the  sense  of  frustra- 
tion were,  I  am  certain,  easier  to  bear  than  would 
have  been  the  consciousness  that  in  our  fear  of 
sensationalism  we  had  left  one  stone  unturned  to 
secure  the  Conference  of  Neutrals  which  seemed 
at  least  to  us  a  possible  agency  for  shortening  the 
conflict. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PRESIDENT  Wilson's  policies  and  the  women's 

PEACE   PARTY 

We  heard  with  much  enthusiasm  the  able  and 
discriminating  annual  message  delivered  by  the 
President  in  December,  19 15.  It  seemed  to  lay 
clearly  before  the  country  "the  American  strategy" 
which  the  President  evidently  meant  to  carry  out; 
he  had  called  for  a  negotiated  peace  in  order  to 
save  both  sides  from  utter  exhaustion  and  moral 
dibJiouer  in  the  end.  We  were  all  disappointed  that 
when  he  asked  for  a  statement  of  war  aims  both 
sides  were  reluctant  to  respond,  but  Germany's  flat 
refusal  put  her  at  an  enormous  disadvantage  and 
enabled  the  President  in  his  role  of  leading  neu- 
tral to  appeal  to  the  German  people  over  the 
heads  of  their  rulers  with  terms  so  hberal  that 
it  was  hoped  that  the  people  themselves  would 
force  an  end  to  the  war.  Naturally,  a  plea  for 
a  negotiated  peace  could  only  be  addressed  to  the 
liberals  throughout  the  world,  who  were  probably 
to  be  found  in  every  country  involved  in  the  con- 
flict. If  the  strategy  had  succeeded  these  liberals 
would  have  come  into  power  in  all  the  parliamen- 

49 


50     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

tary  countries  and  the  making  of  the  peace  as 
well  as  the  organization  of  the  international  body 
to  be  formed  after  the  war,  would  naturally  have 
been  in  liberal  hands.  The  peace  conference  it- 
self would  inevitably  have  been  presided  over 
by  the  President  of  the  great  neutral  nation  who 
had  forced  the  Issue.  All  this  in  sharp  contrast 
to  what  would  result  if  the  United  States,  with  its 
enormous  resources,  entered  into  the  war,  for  if 
the  war  were  carried  on  to  a  smashing  victory, 
the  "bitter  enders"  would  inevitably  be  in  power 
at  its  conclusion. 

We  also  counted  upon  the  fact  that  this  great 
war  had  challenged  the  validity  of  the  existing 
status  between  nations,  as  it  had  never  been  ques- 
tioned before,  and  that  radical  changes  were  being 
proposed  by  the  most  conservative  of  men  every- 
where. As  conceived  by  the  pacifist,  the  construc- 
tive task  laid  upon  the  United  States  at  that  mo- 
ment was  the  discovery  of  an  adequate  moral 
basis  for  a  new  relationship  between  nations.  The 
exercise  of  the  highest  political  intelligence  might 
hasten  to  a  speedy  completion  for  immediate  use 
that  international  organization  which  had  been  so 
long  discussed  and  so  ardently  anticipated. 

Pacifists  believed  that  in  the  Europe  of  19 14, 
certain  tendencies  were  steadily  pushing  towards 
large  changes  which  in  the  end  made  war,  because 
the  system  of  peace  had  no  way  of  effecting  those 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        51 

changes  without  war,  no  adequate  international 
organization  which  could  cope  with  the  situation. 
The  conception  of  peace  founded  upon  the  balance 
of  power  or  the  undisturbed  status  quo,  was  so 
negative  that  frustrated  national  impulses  and  sup- 
pressed vital  forces  led  to  war,  because  no  method 
of  orderly  expression  had  been  devised. 

The  world  was  bent  on  a  change,  for  it  knew 
that  the  real  denial  and  surrender  of  life  is  not 
physical  death  but  acquiescence  in  hampered  con- 
ditions and  unsolved  problems.  Agreeing  sub- 
stantially with  this  analysis  of  the  causes  of  the 
war,  we  pacifists,  so  far  from  passively  wishing 
nothing  to  be  done,  contended  on  the  contrary 
that  this  world  crisis  should  be  utilized  for  the 
creation  of  an  international  government  able  to 
make  the  necessary  political  and  economic  changes 
which  were  due;  we  felt  that  it  was  unspeakably 
stupid  that  the  nations  should  fail  to  create  an 
international  organization  through  which  each  one, 
without  danger  to  itself,  might  recognize  and  even 
encourage  the  impulse  toward  growth  In  other 
nations. 

In  spite  of  many  assertions  to  the  contrary,  we 
were  not  advocating  the  mid-Victorian  idea  that 
good  men  from  every  country  meet  together  at 
The  Hague  or  elsewhere,  there  to  pass  a  resolu- 
tion that  "wars  hereby  cease"  and  that  "the  world 
hereby  be   federated."     What  we  insisted  upon 


52      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

was  that  the  world  could  be  organized  politically 
by  its  statesmen  as  it  had  been  already  organized 
into  an  international  fiscal  system  by  its  bankers. 
We  asked  why  the  problem  of  building  a  railroad 
to  Bagdad,  of  securing  corridors  to  the  sea  for 
a  land-locked  nation,  or  warm  water  harbors  for 
Russia,  should  result  in  war.  Surely  the  minds 
of  this  generation  were  capable  of  solving  such 
problems  as  the  minds  of  other  generations  had 
solved  their  difficult  problems.  Was  it  not  ob- 
vious that  such  situations  transcended  national 
boundaries  and  must  be  approached  in  a  spirit 
of  world  adjustment,  that  they  could  not  be  peace- 
fully adjusted  while  men's  minds  were  still  held 
apart  by  national  suspicions  and  rivalries. 

The  pacifists  hoped  that  the  United  States 
might  perform  a  much  needed  service  in  the  inter- 
national field,  by  demonstrating  that  the  same 
principles  of  federation  and  of  an  interstate  tri- 
bunal might  be  extended  among  widely  separated 
nations,  as  they  had  already  been  established  be- 
tween our  own  contiguous  states.  Founded  upon 
the  great  historical  experiment  of  the  United 
States,  it  seemed  to  us  that  American  patriotism 
might  rise  to  a  supreme  effort  because  her  own 
experience  for  more  than  a  century  had  so  thor- 
oughly committed  her  to  federation  and  to  peace- 
ful adjudication  as  matters  of  every-day  govern- 
ment.   The  President's  speech  before  the  Senate 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES         53 

embodied  such  a  masterly  restatement  of  early 
American  principles  that  thousands  of  his  fellow 
citizens  dedicated  themselves  anew  to  finding  a 
method  for  applying  them  in  the  wider  and  more 
difficult  field  of  international  relationships.  We 
were  stirred  to  enthusiasm  by  certain  indications 
that  President  Wilson  was  preparing  for  this  diffi- 
cult piece  of  American  strategy. 

It  was  early  in  January,  191 6,  that  the  Presi- 
dent put  forth  his  Pan-American  program  before 
the  Pan-American  Scientific  Congress  which  was 
held  in  Washington  at  that  time.  His  first  point, 
"to  unite  in  guaranteeing  to  each  other  absolute 
political  Independence  and  territorial  integrity" 
was  not  so  significant  to  us  as  the  second,  "to  set- 
tle all  disputes  arising  between  us  by  investiga- 
tion and  arbitration." 

One  of  our  members  had  been  prominently 
identified  with  this  Congress.  I  had  addressed  its 
Woman's  Auxiliary  and  at  our  Executive  Com- 
mittee meeting,  held  in  January,  19 16,  we  felt  that 
we  had  a  right  to  consider  the  Administration 
committed  still  further  to  the  path  of  arbitration 
upon  which  it  had  entered  in  September,  19 14, 
when  treaties  had  been  signed  in  Washington  with 
Great  Britain,  France,  Spain  and  China,  each  pro- 
viding for  commissions  of  inquiry  in  cases  of  diffi- 
culty. Secretary  Bryan  had  stated  at  that  time 
that  twenty-six  nations  had  already  signed  such 


54     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

treaties,  and  that  Russia,  Germany  and  Austria 
were  being  urged  to  do  so.  Then  there  had  been 
the  President's  Mexican  poliq^  which,  in  spite 
of  great  pressure  had  kept  the  United  States  free 
from  military  intervention,  and  had  been  marked 
by  great  forebearance  to  a  sister  republic  which 
as  yet  was  struggling  awkwardly  toward  self-gov- 
ernment. 

But  it  was  still  early  in  191 6  that  the  curious 
and  glaring  difference  between  the  President's 
statement  of  foreign  policy  and  the  actual  bent  of 
the  Administration  began  to  appear.  In  the  treaty 
with  Haiti,  ratified  by  the  United  States  Senate 
in  February,  19 16,  the  United  States  guaranteed 
Haiti  territorial  and  political  independence  and 
in  turn  was  empowered  to  administer  Haiti's  cus- 
toms and  finances  for  twenty  years.  United 
States  Marines,  however,  had  occupied  Haiti  since 
a  riot  which  had  taken  place  in  19 15  and  had  set 
up  a  military  government,  including  a  strict  mili- 
tary censorship.  All  sorts  of  stories  were  reach- 
ing the  oflice  of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party,  some 
of  them  from  white  men  wearing  the  United 
States'  uniform,  some  of  them  from  black  men  in 
despair  over  the  treatment  accorded  to  the  island 
by  "armed  invaders."  We  made  our  protest  to 
Washington,  Miss  Breckenridge  presenting  the 
protest  in  person  after  she  had  made  a  most  care- 
ful investigation  into  all  the  records  to  be  found 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        55 

in  the  possession  of  the  government.  She  re- 
ceived a  most  evasive  reply  having  to  do  with  a 
naval  base  which  the  United  States  had  estab- 
lished there  in  preference  to  allowing  France  or 
Germany  to  do  so.  In  response  to  our  suggestion 
that  the  whole  matter  be  referred  to  the  Central 
American  Court  we  were  told  that  the  Court  was 
no  longer  functioning,  and  a  little  later  Indeed  the 
Carnegie  building  itself  was  dismantled,  thus 
putting  an  end  to  one  of  the  most  promising 
beginnings  of  International  arbitration. 

In  February,  191 6,  came  the  Nicaraguan  treaty 
including  among  other  things  the  payment  of  $3,- 
000,000  for  a  naval  base,  seemingly  in  contradic- 
tion to  the  President's  former  stand  in  regard 
to  Panama  Canal  tolls  and  the  fortification  of  the 
Canal.  Again  the  Information  given  in  response 
to  the  inquiry  of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party  was 
fragmentary  and  again  responsibility  seemed  to  be 
divided  between  several  departments  of  the  gov- 
ernment. 

In  the  late  summer  of  the  same  year  there  came 
the  purchase  of  the  Virgin  Islands  from  Denmark. 
A  plebiscite  had  been  taken  in  Denmark  in  regard 
to  this  sale  but  none  was  to  be  taken  on  the  Islands 
themselves  that  the  people  living  there  might  say 
whether  or  not  they  wished  to  be  transferred. 
When  the  Woman's  Peace  Party  urged  such  a 
plebiscite,  we  were  told  that  there  was  no  doubt 


56      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

that  the  Virgin  Islands  people  did  wish  such  a 
transfer,  but  there  was  no  reply  to  our  contention 
that  it  would  make  it  all  the  easier  therefore,  to 
take  the  vote,  and  that  the  situation  offered  a  won- 
derful opportunity  actually  to  put  into  practice  on 
a  small  scale  what  the  President  himself  would 
shortly  ask  Europe  to  do  on  a  large  scale.  This 
opportunity,  of  course,  was  never  utilized  and 
thousands  of  people  were  transferred  from  one 
government  to  another  without  a  formal  expres- 
sion of  their  wishes. 

In  November,  19 16,  military  occupation  of  the 
San  Dominican  Republic  was  proclaimed  by  Cap- 
tain Knapp  of  the  United  States  Navy  and  a  mili- 
tary government  was  established  there  under  con- 
trol of  the  United  States.  Again  we  made  our 
protest  but  this  time  as  a  matter  of  form,  having 
little  hope  of  a  satisfactory  reply  although  we 
were  always  received  with  much  official  courtesy. 
We  were  quite  ready  to  admit  that  the  govern- 
ment was  pursuing  a  consistent  policy  in  regard 
to  the  control  of  the  Caribbean  Sea,  but  we  not 
only  felt  the  danger  of  using  the  hunt  for  naval 
bases  as  an  excuse  to  subdue  one  revolution  after 
another  and  to  set  up  military  government,  but 
also  very  much  dreaded  the  consequences  of  such 
a  line  of  action  upon  the  policy  of  the  United 
States  in  its  larger  international  relationships.  We 
said  to  each  other  and  once  when  the  occasion  of- 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        57 

fered,  to  the  President  himself,  that  to  reduce 
the  theory  to  action  was  the  only  way  to  attract 
the  attention  of  a  world  at  war;  Europe  would 
be  convinced  of  the  sincerity  of  the  United  States 
only  If  the  President  was  himself  actually  carry- 
ing out  his  announced  program  in  the  Caribbean 
or  wherever  opportunity  offered.  Out  of  the  long 
International  struggle  had  arisen  a  moral  problem 
the  solution  of  which  could  only  be  suggested 
through  some  imperative  act  which  would  arrest 
attention  as  a  mere  statement  could  not  possibly 
do.  It  seemed  to  us  at  moments  as  if  the  Presi- 
dent were  imprisoned  in  his  own  spacious  intel- 
lectuality, and  had  forgotten  the  overwhelming 
value  of  the  deed. 

Up  to  the  moment  of  his  nomination  for  a  sec- 
ond term  our  hopes  had  gradually  shifted  to  the 
belief  that  the  President  would  finally  act,  not  so 
much  from  his  own  preferences  or  convictions,  but 
from  the  Impact  upon  him  of  public  opinion,  from 
the  momentum  of  the  pressure  for  Peace,  which 
we  were  sure  the  campaign  itself  would  make  clear 
to  him,  I  was  too  111  at  that  time  for  much  cam- 
paigning but  knew  quite  well  that  my  vote  could 
but  go  to  the  man  who  had  been  so  essentially 
right  in  international  affairs.  I  held  to  this  posi- 
tion through  many  spirited  talks  with  Progressive 
friends  who  felt  that  our  mutual  hopes  could  be 
best   secured   through    other   parties,    and   as   I 


58     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

grew  better,  and  was  able  to  undertake  a  mini- 
mum of  speaking  and  writing,  It  was  all  for  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  reelection  and  for  an  organization 
of  a  League  of  Nations.  My  feeble  efforts  were 
recognized  beyond  their  desert  when,  after  the 
successful  issue  In  November  I  was  Invited  to  a 
White  House  dinner  tendered  to  a  few  people  who 
had  been  the  President's  steadfast  friends. 

The  results  of  the  campaign  had  been  very 
gratifying  to  the  members  of  our  group.  It 
seemed  at  last  as  If  peace  were  assured  and  the 
future  safe  In  the  hands  of  a  chief  executive  who 
had  received  an  unequivocal  mandate  from  the 
people  "to  keep  us  out  of  war,"  We  were,  to  be 
sure,  at  moments  a  little  uneasy  in  regard  to  his 
theory  of  self-government,  a  theory  which  had  re- 
appeared In  his  campaign  speeches  and  was  so 
similar  to  that  found  in  his  earlier  books.  It 
seemed  at  those  times  as  if  he  were  not  so  eager 
for  a  mandate  to  carry  out  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple as  for  an  opportunity  to  lead  the  people 
whither  in  his  judgment  their  best  interest  lay. 
Did  he  place  too  much  stress  on  leadership? 

But  moments  of  uneasiness  were  forgotten  and 
the  pacifists  In  every  part  of  the  world  were  not 
only  enormously  reassured  but  were  sent  up  Into 
the  very  heaven  of  Internationalism,  as  it  were, 
when  President  Wilson  delivered  his  famous 
speech  to   the   Senate   In  January,    19 17,   which 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        59 

forecast  his  fourteen  points.  Some  of  these 
points  had,  of  course,  become  common  property 
among  Liberals  since  the  first  year  of  the  war 
when  they  had  been  formulated  by  The  League 
for  Democratic  Control  In  England  and  later 
became  known  as  a  "union"  program.  Our  Wom- 
an's International  Congress  held  at  The  Hague 
In  May,  19 15,  had  incorporated  most  of  the  Eng- 
lish formula  and  had  added  others.  The  Presi- 
dent himself  had  been  kind  enough  to  say  when  I 
presented  our  Hague  program  to  him  In  August, 
19 15,  that  they  were  the  best  formulation  he  had 
seen  up  to  that  time. 

President  Wilson,  however,  later  not  only  gath- 
ered together  the  best  liberal  statements  yet  made, 
formulated  them  in  his  incomparable  English  and 
added  others  of  his  own,  but  he  was  the  first  re- 
sponsible statesman  to  enunciate  them  as  an  ac- 
tual program  for  guidance  In  a  troubled  world. 
Among  the  thousands  of  congratulatory  telegrams 
received  by  the  President  at  that  time  none  could 
have  been  more  enthusiastic  than  those  sent  offi- 
cially and  personally  by  the  members  of  our  little 
group.  We  considered  that  the  United  States  was 
committed  not  only  to  using  Its  vast  neutral  power 
to  extend  democracy  throughout  the  world,  but 
also  to  the  conviction  that  democratic  ends  could 
not  be  attained  through  the  technique  of  war.  In 
short,  we  believed  that  rational  thinking  and  rea- 


6o     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

sonable  human  relationships  were  once  more  pub- 
licly recognized  as  valid  in  international  affairs. 

If,  after  the  declaration  of  his  foreign  policy, 
it  seemed  to  our  group  that  desire  and  achieve- 
ment were  united  in  one  able  protagonist,  the  phil- 
osopher become  king,  so  to  speak^  this  state  of 
mind  was  destined  to  be  short  lived,  for  almost 
immediately  the  persistent  tendency  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  divorce  his  theory  from  the  actual  conduct 
of  state  affairs  threw  us  into  a  state  of  absolute 
bewilderment.  During  a  speaking  tour  in  Janu- 
ary, 19 1 7,  he  called  attention  to  the  need  of  a 
greater  army,  and  in  St,  Louis  openly  declared 
that  the  United  States  should  have  the  biggest 
navy  in  the  world. 

We  were  in  despair  a  few  weeks  later  when 
in  Washington  the  President  himself  led  the  Pre- 
paredness parade  and  thus  publicly  seized  the 
leadership  of  the  movement  which  had  been 
started  and  pushed  by  his  opponents.  It  was  an 
able  political  move  if  he  believed  that  the  United 
States  should  enter  the  European  conflict  through 
orthodox  warfare,  but  he  had  given  his  friends 
every  right  to  suppose  that  he  meant  to  treat  the 
situation  through  a  much  bolder  and  at  the  same 
time  more  subtle  method.  The  question  with  us 
was  not  one  of  national  isolation,  although  we 
were  constantly  told  that  this  was  the  alternative 
to  war,  it  was  purely  a  question  of  the  method  the 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        6i 

United  States  should  take  to  enter  into  a  world 
situation.  The  crisis,  it  seemed  to  us,  offered  a 
test  of  the  vigor  and  originality  of  a  nation  whose 
very  foundations  were  laid  upon  a  willingness  to 
experiment. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  another  disconcerting 
factor  in  the  situation  made  itself  felt;  a  factor 
which  was  brilliantly  analyzed  in  Randolph 
Bourne's  article  entitled  "War  and  the  Intellec- 
tuals." The  article  was  a  protest  against  the 
"unanimity  with  which  the  American  intellectuals 
had  thrown  their  support  to  the  use  of  war  tech- 
nique in  the  crisis  in  which  America  found  her- 
self," and  against  "the  riveting  of  the  war  mind 
upon  a  hundred  million  more  of  the  world's  peo- 
ple." It  seemed  as  if  certain  intellectuals,  editors, 
professors,  clergymen,  were  energetically  pushing 
forward  the  war  against  the  hesitation  and  dim 
perception  of  the  mass  of  the  ptople.  They 
seemed  actually  to  believe  that  "  a  war  free  from 
any  taint  of  self-seeking  could  secure  the  triumph 
of  democracy  and  internationalize  the  world." 
They  extolled  the  President  as  a  great  moral 
leader  because  he  was  irrevocably  leading  the  coun- 
try into  war.  The  long  established  peace  societies 
and  their  orthodox  organs  quickly  fell  into  line 
expounding  the  doctrine  that  the  world's  greatest 
war  was  to  make  an  end  to  all  wars.  It  was  hard 
for  some  of  us  to  understand  upon  what  experi- 


62      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ence  this  pathetic  belief  in  the  regenerative  results 
of  war  could  be  founded;  but  the  world  had  be- 
come filled  with  fine  phrases  and  this  one,  which 
afforded  comfort  to  many  a  young  soldier,  was 
taken  up  and  endlessly  repeated  with  an  entire 
absence  of  the  critical  spirit. 

Through  the  delivery  of  the  second  inaugural 
address  the  President  continued  to  stress  the  re- 
construction of  the  world  after  the  war  as  the 
aim  of  American  diplomacy  and  endeavor.  Cer- 
tainly his  pacifist  friends  had  every  right  to  be- 
lieve that  he  meant  to  attain  this  by  newer  and 
finer  methods  than  those  possible  in  warfare,  but 
it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  his  words  were  open 
to  both  constructions. 

It  will  always  be  difficult  to  explain  the  change 
in  the  President's  intention  (if  indeed  it  was  a 
change)  occurring  between  his  inaugural  address 
on  March  4th  and  his  recommendation  for  a  de- 
claration of  war  presented  to  Congress  on  April 
2nd.  A  well  known  English  economist  has  re- 
cently written :  "The  record  shows  Mr.  Wilson  up 
to  1917  essentially  a  pacifist,  and  assailed  as  such. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  external  evidence  to  ex- 
plain his  swift  plunge  into  materialism.  His  'too 
proud  to  fight'  maxim  was  repeated  after  the  Lusi- 
tania  incident.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  peo- 
ple who  had  elected  him  in  the  previous  fall  be- 
cause  he   had   'kept   us   out'   wanted    to   go   in 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        63 

until  Mr.  Wilson  made  them  want.  Why  did  he? 
What  was  the  rapid  conversion  which  it  is  com- 
monly supposed  Mr.  Wilson  underwent  in  the 
winter  of  1916-1917?" 

The  pacifists  were  not  idle  during  these  days. 
A  meeting  of  all  the  leading  peace  societies  was 
called  in  New  York  in  March  and  a  committee  of 
five,  of  which  two  were  members  of  the  Woman's 
Peace  Party,  was  appointed  to  wait  upon  the  Presi- 
dent with  suggestions  for  what  we  ventured  to 
call  possible  alternatives  to  war.  Professor  Hull 
of  Swarthmore  College,  a  former  student  of  the 
President's,  presented  a  brief  resume  of  what 
other  American  presidents  had  done  through 
adjudication  when  the  interests  of  American 
shipping  had  become  involved  during  European 
wars;  notably,  George  Washington  during  the 
French  Revolution  and  John  Adams  in  the 
Napoleonic  War,  so  that  international  adjudica- 
tion instituted  by  Chief  Justice  Jay  became  known 
in  Europe  as  "the  American  plan."  The  Presi- 
dent was,  of  course,  familiar  with  that  history,  as 
he  reminded  his  old  pupil,  but  he  brushed  it  aside 
as  he  did  the  suggestion  that  if  the  attack  on 
American  shipping  were  submitted  to  The  Hague 
tribunal,  it  might  result  in  adjudication  of  the 
issues  of  the  great  war  itself.  The  Labor  man 
on  the  committee  still  expressed  the  hope  for  a 
popular   referendum  before   war  should  be   de- 


64     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

clared,  and  we  once  more  pressed  for  a  con- 
ference of  neutrals.  Other  suggestions  were  pre- 
sented by  a  committee  from  the  Union  Against 
Militarism  who  entered  the  President's  office  as 
we  were  leaving  It.  The  President's  mood  was 
stern  and  far  from  the  scholar's  detachment  as  he 
told  us  of  recent  disclosures  of  German  machina- 
tions in  Mexico  and  announced  the  impossibility 
of  any  form  of  adjudication.  He  still  spoke  to  us, 
however,  as  to  fellow  pacifists  to  whom  he  was 
forced  to  confess  that  war  had  become  inevitable. 
He  used  one  phrase  which  I  had  heard  Colonel 
House  use  so  recently  that  it  still  stuck  firmly  in 
my  memory.  The  phrase  was  to  the  effect  that, 
as  head  of  a  nation  participating  in  the  war,  the 
President  of  the  United  States  would  have  a  seat 
at  the  Peace  Table,  but  that  if  he  remained  the 
representative  of  a  neutral  country  he  could  at  best 
only  "call  through  a  crack  in  the  door."  The  ap- 
peal he  made  was,  in  substance,  that  the  foreign 
policy  which  we  so  extravagantly  admired  could 
have  a  chance  if  he  were  there  to  push  and  to  de- 
fend them,  but  not  otherwise.  It  was  as  if  his 
heart's  desire  spoke  through  his  words  and  dic- 
tated his  view  of  the  situation.  But  I  found  my 
mind  challenging  his  whole  theory  of  leadership. 
Was  it  a  result  of  my  bitter  disappointment  that  I 
hotly  and  no  doubt  unfairly  asked  myself  whether 
any  man  had  the  right  to  rate  his  moral  leadership 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        65 

so  high  that  he  could  consider  the  sacrifice  of 
the  lives  of  thousands  of  his  young  countrymen 
a  necessity?  I  also  reminded  myself  that  all  the 
study  of  modern  social  science  is  but  a  revelation 
of  the  fallacy  of  such  a  point  of  view,  a  discredit- 
ing of  the  Carlyle  contention  that  the  people  must 
be  led  into  the  ways  of  righteousness  by  the  ex- 
perience, acumen  and  virtues  of  the  great  man. 
It  was  possible  that  the  President  would  "go  to 
the  people"  once  more  as  he  had  gone  years  before 
with  a  brilliant  formulization  of  democracy  in 
education  when  he  wanted  his  Princeton  policy 
confirmed;  or  as  he  had  appealed  to  the  peace 
loving  people  during  his  campaign,  solely  in  order 
to  confirm  what  he  wanted  to  do  and  to  explain 
what  he  thought  wise.  In  neither  case  had  he 
offered  himself  as  a  willing  instrument  to  carry 
out  the  people's  desires.  He  certainly  did  not 
dig  the  channels  through  which  their  purposes 
might  flow  and  his  own  purpose  be  obtained  be- 
cause it  had  become  one  with  theirs.  It  seemed 
to  me  quite  obvious  that  the  processes  of  war 
would  destroy  more  democratic  mstitutions  than 
he  could  ever  rebuild  however  much  he  might  de- 
clare the  purpose  of  war  to  be  the  extension  of 
democracy.  What  was  this  curious  break  between 
speech  and  deed,  how  could  he  expect  to  know  the 
doctrine  if  he  refused  to  do  the  will? 

Some  of  us  felt  that  this  genuine  desire  on  the 


66      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

part  of  the  President,  to  be  in  a  position  to  do 
great  good  was  perhaps  the  crux  of  the  difficulty 
later  when  he  actually  took  his  place  at  the  Peace 
Table,  sitting  in  fact  at  the  head  of  a  table,  at 
which  no  umpire  could  have  taken  a  seat,  since 
only  those  on  one  side  of  the  great  conflict  were 
permitted  to  sit  there.  The  President  had  a  seat 
at  the  Peace  Table  as  one  among  other  victors, 
not  as  the  impartial  adjudicator.  He  had  to  drive 
a  bargain  for  his  League  of  Nations,  he  could  not 
insist  upon  it  as  the  inevitable  basis  for  negotia- 
tions between  two  sides,  the  foundation  of  a 
"peace  between  equals." 

Were  the  difficulties  of  the  great  compromise 
inherent  in  the  situation,  and  would  they  still  have 
been  there  even  if  both  sides  had  been  present 
at  a  conference  presided  over  by  a  fair  minded 
judge?  Certainly  some  of  the  difficulties  would 
have  yielded  in  such  an  atmosphere  and  some  of 
the  mistakes  would  have  been  averted.  Twenty- 
six  governments  of  the  world  stood  convicted  of 
their  own  impotence  to  preserve  life  and  property, 
they  were  directly  responsible  for  the  loss  of  ten 
million  men  in  military  service,  as  many  more  peo- 
ple through  the  disease  and  desolation  following 
war,  for  the  destruction  of  untold  accumulations 
of  civilized  life.  What  would  have  been  the  result 
had  the  head  of  one  nation  been  there  to  testify  to 
a  new  standard  in  national  government?     What 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        67 

might  have  happened  if  President  Wilson  could 
have  said  in  January,  19 19,  what  he  had  said  in 
January,  19 17, — "A  victor's  terms  imposed  upon 
the  vanquished  .  .  .  would  leave  a  sting,  a  resent- 
ment, a  bitter  memory  upon  which  terms  of  peace 
would  rest  not  permanently  but  only  as  upon 
quicksand,"  or  again,  "The  right  state  of  mind, 
the  right  feeling  between  nations,  is  as  necessary 
for  a  lasting  peace  as  is  the  just  settlement  of 
vexed  questions  of  territory,  or  of  racial  and  na- 
tional allegiance."  At  that  very  moment  the  wind 
of  idealism  was  blowing  strongly  across  Europe, 
there  were  exaggerated  hopes  of  a  new  and  better 
world  from  which  war  should  be  forever  banished. 
Europe  distrusted  any  compromise  with  a  monster 
which  had  already  devoured  her  young  men  and 
all  but  destroyed  her  civilization.  A  man  who  had 
stood  firmly  against  participation  in  war  could 
have  had  his  way  with  the  common  people  in 
every  country.  The  President  became  the  center 
of  the  world's  hopes  because  of  the  things  he  had 
said  against  war,  and  because  people  believed  that 
he  expressed  their  own  abhorrence.  Did  the 
League  of  Nations  fail  to  win  their  hearts  not  be- 
cause it  was  too  idealistic  or  too  pacifistic  but 
because  it  permitted  war  in  too  many  instances,  be- 
cause its  very  structure  and  functioning  is  per- 
vaded by  the  war  spirit,  the  victorious  disciplin- 


68      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ing  the  defeated,  whereas  the  people  had  dreamed 
of  a  League  of  Peace  lifting  up  all  those  who 
had  been  the  victims  of  militarism? 

General  Smuts  has  said  that  the  Paris  Peace 
in  destroying  the  moral  idealism  born  of  the  sacri- 
fices of  the  war,  did  almost  as  much  as  the  war 
itself  to  shatter  the  structure  of  western  civiliza- 
tion. But  the  disastrous  Peace  came  about,  to 
quote  the  words  of  General  Smuts  himself,  be- 
cause "in  the  end  not  only  the  leaders  but  the 
people  themselves  preferred  a  bit  of  booty  here, 
a  strategic  frontier  there,  a  coal  field  or  an  oil 
well,  an  addition  to  their  population  or  their  re- 
sources— to  all  the  faint  allurements  of  an  ideal." 
It  was  indeed  the  human  spirit  itself  which  failed, 
but  the  human  spirit  under  a  temptation  which  an 
earlier  peace  might  have  diminished.  An  impar- 
tial judge  who  could  have  insisted  that  there 
should  be  "no  discriminations  to  those  to  whom 
we  wish  to  be  just,  and  those  to  whom  we  do  not 
wish  to  be  just,"  might  in  a  measure  have  cooled 
the  nationalistic  passions  inevitably  aroused  by  a 
long  and  disastrous  war,  might  have  substituted 
other  hopes  for  those  so  long  deferred,  for  the 
glittering  promises  which  must  of  necessity  remain 
unfulfilled.  Or  was  the  difficulty  more  funda- 
mental? Did  the  world  expect  two  roles  from 
one  man,  when  experience  should  have  clearly  indi- 
cated that  ability  to  play  the  two  are  seldom  com- 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        69 

bined  in  the  same  person?  The  power  to  make 
the  statement,  to  idealize  a  given  situation,  to  for- 
mulate the  principle,  is  a  gift  of  the  highest  sort, 
but  it  assumes  with  intellectual  power  a  certain 
ability  of  philosophic  detachment;  in  one  sense 
it  implies  the  spectator  rather  than  the  doer.  A 
man  who  has  thus  formulated  a  situation  must 
have  a  sense  of  achievement,  of  having  done  what 
he  is  best  fitted  to  do;  he  has  made  his  contri- 
bution and  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  he  should 
feel  that  the  thing  itself  has  been  accomplished. 
To  require  the  same  man  later  on  to  carry  out  his 
dictum  in  a  complicated,  contradictory  situation 
demands  such  a  strain  upon  his  temperament  that 
it  may  be  expecting  him  to  do  what  only  another 
man  of  quite  another  temperament  could  do.  Cer- 
tainly international  affairs  have  been  profoundly 
modified  by  President  Wilson's  magnificent  contri- 
bution. From  one  aspect  of  the  situation  he  did 
obtain  his  end;  to  urge  "open  covenants,  openly 
arrived  at"  as  a  basic  necessity  for  a  successful 
society  of  nations,  cuts  at  the  root  of  a  prolific 
cause  for  war  by  simply  turning  on  the  light.  But 
the  man  who  would  successfully  insist  upon  such 
a  course  of  procedure  in  actual  negotiations  is  not 
only  he  who  sees  the  situation  but  he  who  is  bent 
upon  the  attainment  of  a  beloved  object,  whose 
cause  has  become  his  heart's  desire.  Nothing  can 
ever  destroy  the  effect  of  the  public  utterance  of 


70     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

the  phrase,  and  the  President  may  well  contend 
that  to  have  aided  in  the  establishment  of  a 
League  of  Nations  Secretariat  where  all  treaties 
must  be  registered  before  they  are  valid  is,  in 
fact,  the  accomplishment  of  his  dictum,  although 
he  must  inevitably  encounter  the  disappointment 
of  those  who  believed  it  to  imply  an  open  discus- 
sion of  the  terms  of  the  Peace  Treaty,  which  to 
his  mind  was  an  impossibility.  Such  an  interpreta- 
tion may  explain  the  paradox  that  the  author  of 
the  fourteen  points  returned  from  Paris,  claiming 
that  he  had  achieved  them. 

Naturally,  during  the  war,  there  was  little  that 
pacifist  organizations  could  do;  from  time  to  time 
we  put  out  suggestions,  sending  them  directly  to 
those  government  authorities  who  were  respon- 
sible for  the  policies  recommended.  Our  small 
group  was  much  disturbed  as  were  other  Ameri- 
can citizens,  by  what  became  increasingly  obvious 
as  the  war  progressed,  that  the  policies  of  the  war 
as  well  as  its  actual  conduct  were  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  militarists. 

We  proposed  at  our  fourth  annual  meeting  that 
a  beginning  be  made  by  the  Allies  to  form  an  Ex- 
ecutive Council  not  only  for  political  action  at  the 
present  but  for  the  future  as  well.  We  suggested 
that  Great  Britain,  France  and  the  U.  S.  A.  each 
appoint  three  delegates  to  an  Allied  Political 
Council;  that  Italy  and  Japan  each  appoint  two 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  POLICIES        71 

delegates;  that  the  other  nations  associated  in 
military  opposition  to  Germany  each  appoint  one 
delegate;  that  these  delegates  meet  in  London 
and  organize  in  a  deliberative  and  advisory  capa- 
city. We  hoped  that  it  could  assume  as  much  posi- 
tive authority  as  the  Versailles  Military  Council 
was  at  that  moment  exercising,  not  only  in  mili- 
tary matters  but  ultimately  in  civil  affairs  as  well. 
Some  such  policy  did  later  of  course  develop, 
through  the  Supreme  Economic  Council,  although 
a  travesty  of  what  we  had  hoped  for. 

As  pacifists  were  in  a  certain  sense  outlaws  dur- 
ing the  war,  our  group  was  no  longer  in  direct 
communication  with  the  White  House,  which 
was  of  course  to  be  expected,  although  curiously 
enough  we  only  slowly  detached  ourselves  from 
the  assumption  that  the  President  really  shared 
our  convictions.  He  himself  at  last  left  no  room 
for  doubt,  when  in  November  he  declared  before 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  that  he  had 
a  contempt  for  pacifists  because  "I,  too,  want 
peace,  but  I  know  how  to  get  it,  and  they  do  not." 
We  quite  agreed  with  him  that  he  knew  how  if  he 
meant  to  secure  peace  through  a  League  of  Na- 
tions, but  we  could  not  understand  how  he  hoped 
to  do  it  through  war. 

I  heard  President  Wilson  speak  in  New  York 
in  Carnegie  Hall  in  February,  19 19,  just  before 
he  returned  to  Europe  for  the  continuance  of  the 


72     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Peace  Conference,  where  he  stressed  the  fact  that 
the  treaty  and  the  League  would  be  inextricably 
woven  together.  Later  in  the  same  speech,  when 
he  said  "that  those  who  oppose  the  League  must 
be  deaf  to  the  demands  of  the  common  man  the 
world  over,"  I  could  not  but  speculate  why,  there- 
fore, must  the  League  depend  upon  the  treaty? 
How  far  had  it  been  his  war  experiences  which 
had  led  him  to  place  his  trust  in  treaties,  above 
his  trust  in  the  instincts  of  humble  people,  in 
whose  hearts  the  desire  for  peace  had  at  last  taken 
sanctuary? 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS  AND  WOMAN's 
TRADITIONS 

As  the  European  war  continued  and  new  relief 
organizations  developed  for  the  care  of  the 
wounded  and  orphaned,  the  members  of  our  group 
felt  increasingly  the  need  for  the  anodyne  of  work, 
although  it  was  difficult  to  find  our  places.  For 
instance,  the  American  Red  Cross,  following  the 
practice  of  the  British  society,  had  become  part 
of  the  military  organization  as  it  had  never  done 
before  and  its  humanitarian  appeal  for  funds  had 
fully  utilized  the  war  enthusiasms.  Such  a  com- 
bination made  it  not  only  more  difficult  for  pacifists 
to  become  identified  with  the  Red  Cross,  but  all 
war  activities  which  were  dependent  upon  public 
funds  became  very  timid  in  regard  to  pacifist  co- 
operation. This  was,  of  course,  quite  natural  as 
the  newspapers  constantly  coupled  the  words 
traitor  and  pro-German  with  the  word  pacifist, 
as  if  they  described  one  and  the  same  person. 
There  were  in  fact  many  examples  arising  from 
the  fear  of  imperiling  a  good  cause  by  having  a 
pacifist  identified  with  it,  that  resulted  in  indi- 

73 


74     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

vidual  pacifists  withdrawing  from  organizations 
which  they  had  themselves  founded  or  fostered. 
But  although  our  feelings  were  sometimes  hurt 
at  the  moment  when  it  was  made  obvious  that  one 
or  another  was  persona  non  grata,  I  think,  on  the 
whole,  we  frankly  recognized  the  instinct  for  prac- 
tical politics  as  responsible  for  certain  incidents; 
at  any  rate,  we  learned  to  take  our  rebuffs  without 
a  sense  of  grievance.  Personally,  I  found  these 
incidents  easier  to  bear  than  the  occasional  perse- 
cutions which  came  the  other  way  around;  when 
enthusiastic  and  fanatical  pacifists  openly  chal- 
lenged the  honesty  and  integrity  of  their  former 
associates  who  had  become  convinced  of  the  ne- 
cessity for  the  war. 

With  many  other  Americans  I,  therefore,  ex- 
perienced a  great  sense  of  relief  when  Congress 
finally  established  a  Department  of  Food  Ad- 
ministration for  the  United  States  and  when  Mr. 
Hoover,  who  had  spent  two  and  a  half  years  in 
Europe  in  intimate  contact  with  the  backwash  of 
war,  made  his  first  appeal  to  his  fellow  country- 
men in  the  name  of  the  food  shortage  of  the  en- 
tire world,  insisting  that  "the  situation  is  more 
than  war,  it  is  a  problem  of  humanity." 

Certainly  here  was  a  line  of  activity  into  which 
we  might  throw  ourselves  with  enthusiasm,  and 
if  we  were  not  too  conspicuous  we  might  be  per- 
mitted to  work  without  challenge.     The  latter 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         75 

was  perhaps  too  much  to  hope  for.  But  although 
the  challenge  came  from  time  to  time,  in  my 
case  at  least  it  did  not  prove  a  deterrent  and  I  was 
soon  receiving  many  more  invitations  than  I  could 
possibly  accept  to  speak  on  food  conservation  in 
relation  to  European  needs;  some  of  these  invita- 
tions were  under  the  auspices  of  the  Federal  De- 
partment of  Food  Administration,  and  in  Califor- 
nia, Texas,  Colorado  and  other  states  under  the 
auspices  of  the  State.  But  what  I  cared  most  for 
was  an  opportunity  to  speak  to  women's  organiza- 
tions, because  I  not  only  believed,  as  I  somewhat 
elaborately  stated,  that  "in  this  great  undertaking 
women  may  bear  a  valiant  part  if  they  but  stretch 
their  minds  to  comprehend  what  it  means  in  this 
world  crisis  to  produce  food  more  abundantly 
and  to  conserve  it  with  wisdom,"  but  I  also  be- 
lieved that  we  might  thus  break  through  into  more 
primitive  and  compelling  motives  than  those  in- 
ducing so  many  women  to  increase  the  war  spirit. 
There  was  something  as  primitive  and  real  about 
feeding  the  helpless  as  there  was  about  the  fight- 
ing and  in  the  race  history  the  tribal  feeding  of 
children  antedated  mass  fighting  by  perhaps  a  mil- 
lion years.  Anthropologists  insist  that  war  has 
not  been  in  the  world  for  more  than  20,000  years. 
It  is  in  fact  so  recent  that  existing  remnants  of 
primitive  people  do  not  understand  it.  They  may 
be  given  to  individual  murder  but  not  to  the  col- 


76      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

lective  fighting  of  numbers  of  men  against  other 
masses  of  men.  Could  not  the  earlier  instinct  and 
training  in  connection  with  food  be  aroused  and 
would  it  be  strong  enough  to  overwhelm  and 
quench  the  later  tendency  to  war.  Each  individual 
within  himself  represented  something  of  both 
strains:  I  used  to  remind  myself  that  although 
I  had  had  ancestors  who  fought  in  all  the  Ameri- 
can wars  since  1684,  I  was  also  the  daughter, 
granddaughter  and  the  great  granddaughter  of 
millers.  My  earliest  recollection  was  of  being 
held  up  in  a  pair  of  dusty  hands  to  see  the  heavy 
stone  mill  wheels  go  round.  The  happiest  occu- 
pation of  my  childhood  was  to  watch  the  old 
foaming  water  wheel  turning  in  the  back  of  the 
mill.  I  could  tell  by  the  sound  of  the  mill  when 
the  old  wheel  was  used,  which  occurred  occasion- 
ally long  after  the  turbines  were  established. 
Watching  the  foaming  water  my  childish  mind  fol- 
lowed the  masses  of  hard  yellow  wheat  through 
the  processes  of  grinding  and  bolting  into  the  piled 
drifts  of  white  flour  and  sometimes  further  into 
myriad  bowls  of  bread  and  milk. 

Again,  those  two  strains  of  War  and  Bread 
mingled  in  my  memory  of  months  of  travel.  Cer- 
tainly drilling  soldiers  and  the  constant  review- 
ing of  troops  were  seen  in  all  the  capital  cities  of 
Europe  but  there  were  also  the  peasant  women 
who,   all   the  world   over,   are   still   doing  such 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         77 

a  large  part  of  the  work  connected  with  the  grow- 
ing and  preparation  of  foods.  I  recalled  them 
everywhere  in  the  fields  of  vast  Russia  as  in  the 
tiny  pastures  of  Switzerland;  by  every  roadside  in 
Palestine  they  were  grinding  at  the  hand  mills; 
in  Egypt  they  were  forever  carrying  the  water  of 
the  Nile  that  the  growing  corn  might  not  perish. 

The  newspapers  daily  reported  the  changing 
fortunes  of  war  on  both  fronts  and  our  souls 
turned  sick  with  anxiety  and  foreboding  because 
all  that  the  modern  world  held  dear  hung  upon 
the  hazards  of  battle.  But  certainly  the  labor  for 
bread,  which  to  me  was  more  basic  and  legitimate 
than  war,  was  still  going  on  everywhere.  In  my 
desire  to  uncover  it,  to  make  clear  woman's  tradi- 
tional activity  with  something  of  its  poetry  and 
significance,  I  read  endlessly  in  Eraser's  '^Golden 
Bough,"  two  large  volumes  of  which  are  given 
over  to  the  history  and  interpretation  of  the  in- 
numerable myths  dealing  with  the  Spirits  of  the 
Corn.  These  spirits  are  always  feminine  and  are 
usually  represented  by  a  Corn  Mother  and  her 
daughter,  vaguely  corresponding  to  the  Greek 
Demeter — the  always  fostering  Earth,  and  her 
child  Persephone. 

At  the  risk  of  breaking  into  the  narrative  of 
this  book,  so  far  as  there  is  one,  I  am  venturing 
to  repeat  some  of  the  material  which  brought  a 
touch  of  comfort  to  me  and  which,  so  far  as  I 


78      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

was  able  at  that  moment,  I  handed  on  to  other 
women.  Fraser  discovers  that  relics  of  the  Corn 
Mother  and  the  Corn  Maiden  are  found  in  nearly 
all  the  harvest  fields  of  Europe;  among  many 
tribes  of  North  American  Indians;  the  Eastern 
world  has  its  Rice  Mother,  for  whom  there  are 
solemn  ceremonies  when  the  seed  rice,  believed  to 
contain  "soul  stuff,"  is  gathered.  These  deities 
are  always  feminine,  as  is  perhaps  natural  from 
the  association  with  fecundity  and  growth,  and 
about  them  has  gathered  much  of  the  poetry  and 
song  in  the  sowing  of  the  grain  and  the  gathering 
of  the  harvest,  and  those  saddest  plaints  of  all, 
expressing  the  sorrows  of  famine. 

Myths  centering  about  the  Corn  Mother  but 
dimly  foreshadowed  what  careful  scientific  re- 
searches have  later  verified  and  developed.  Stu- 
dents of  primitive  society  believe  that  women  were 
the  first  agriculturists  and  were  for  a  long  time 
the  only  inventors  and  developers  of  its  processes. 
The  men  of  the  tribe  did  little  for  cultivating  the 
soil  beyond  clearing  the  space  and  sometimes  sur- 
rounding it  by  a  rough  protection.  The  woman 
as  consistently  supplied  all  cereals  and  roots  eaten 
by  the  tribe  as  the  man  brought  in  the  game  and 
fish,  and  in  early  picture  writing  the  short  hoe 
became  as  universally  emblematic  of  woman  as  the 
spear  of  the  hunter,  or  the  shield  and  battle  axe 
of  the  warrior.    In  some  tribes  it  became  a  fixed 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         79 

belief  that  seeds  would  not  grow  if  planted  by  a 
man,  and  apparently  all  primitive  peoples  were 
convinced  that  seeds  would  grow  much  better  if 
planted  by  women.  In  Central  Africa  to  this  day 
a  woman  may  obtain  a  divorce  from  her  husband 
and  return  to  her  father's  tribe,  if  the  former 
fails  to  provide  her  with  a  garden  and  a  hoe. 

It  is  said  that  every  widespread  myth  has  its 
counterpart  in  the  world  of  morals.  This  is  cer- 
tainly true  of  the  "fostering  Mother."  Students 
in  the  origin  of  social  customs  contend  that  the 
gradual  change  from  the  wasteful  manner  of  no- 
madic life  to  a  settled  and  much  more  economic 
mode  of  existence  may  be  fairly  attributed  to  these 
primitive  agricultural  women.  Mothers  in  order 
to  keep  their  children  alive  had  transplanted  roots 
from  the  forest  or  wild  grains  from  the  plains, 
into  patches  of  rudely  cultivated  ground.  We  can 
easily  imagine  when  the  hunting  was  poor  or  when 
the  flocks  needed  a  new  pasture,  that  the  men 
of  the  tribe  would  be  for  moving  on,  but  that  the 
women  might  insist  that  they  could  not  possibly 
go  until  their  tiny  crops  were  garnered;  and  that 
if  the  tribe  were  induced  to  remain  in  the  same 
caves  or  huts  until  after  harvest  the  women  might 
even  timidly  hope  that  they  could  use  the  same 
fields  next  year,  and  thus  avert  the  loss  of  their 
children,  sure  to  result  from  the  alternation  of 
gorging  when  the  hunt  was  good  and  of  starv- 


8o     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ing  when  it  was  poor.  The  desire  to  grow  food 
for  her  children  led  to  a  fixed  abode  and  to  the 
beginning  of  a  home,  from  which  our  domestic 
morality  and  customs  are  supposed  to  have  origin- 
ated. 

With  such  a  historic  background,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  women  might,  in  response  to  the  food 
saving  and  food  production  appeals  issued  in  one 
country  after  another,  so  enlarge  their  conception 
of  duty  that  the  consciousness  of  the  world's  needs 
for  food  should  become  the  actual  impulse  of  their 
daily  activities. 

It  also  presented  another  interesting  aspect; 
from  the  time  we  were  little  children  we  have 
all  of  us,  at  moments  at  least,  cherished  over- 
whelming desires  to  be  of  use  in  the  great  world, 
to  play  a  conscious  part  in  its  progress.  The  diffi- 
culty has  always  been  in  attaching  our  vague  pur- 
poses to  the  routine  of  our  daily  living,  in  making 
a  synthesis  between  our  ambitions  to  cure  the  ills 
of  the  world  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  need  to 
conform  to  household  requirements  on  the  other. 

It  was  a  very  significant  part  of  the  situation, 
therefore,  that  at  this  world's  crisis  the  two  had 
become  absolutely  essential  to  each  other.  A 
great  world  purpose  could  not  be  achieved  with- 
out woman's  participation  founded  upon  an  intel- 
ligent understanding  and  upon  the  widest  sym- 
pathy, at  the  same  time  the  demand  could  be  met 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         8i 

only  if  It  were  attached  to  her  domestic  routine, 
its  very  success  depending  upon  a  conscious  change 
and  modification  of  her  daily  habits. 

It  was  no  slight  undertaking  to  make  this  syn- 
thesis, it  afforded  probably  the  most  compelling 
challenge  which  has  been  made  upon  woman's  con- 
structive powers  for  centuries.  It  required  all  her 
human  affection  and  all  her  clarity  of  mind  to  make 
the  kind  of  adjustment  which  the  huge  scale  of  the 
situation  demanded. 

It  is  quite  understandable  that  there  was  no 
place  for  woman  and  her  possible  contribution  in 
international  affairs  under  the  old  diplomacy. 
Such  things  were  indeed  not  "woman's  sphere." 
But  it  was  possible  that  as  women  entered  into 
politics  when  clean  milk  and  the  premature  labor 
of  children  became  factors  in  political  life,  so 
they  might  be  concerned  with  international  af- 
fairs when  these  at  last  were  dealing  with  such 
human  and  poignant  matters  as  food  for  starving 
peoples  who  could  be  fed  only  through  interna- 
tional activities. 

I  recall  a  great  audience  in  Hot  Springs,  Ar- 
kansas, made  up  of  the  members  of  the  General 
Federation  of  Women's  Clubs.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  every  woman  there  might  influence  her  com- 
munity "back  home,"  not  only  to  produce  and  to 
save  more  food,  but  to  pour  into  the  war  torn 
world  such  compassion  as  would  melt  down  its 


82      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

animosities  and  bring  back  into  it  a  gregarious 
instinct  older  and  more  human  that  the  motives 
responsible  for  war.  I  believed  that  a  generous 
response  to  this  world  situation  might  afford  an 
opportunity  to  lay  over  again  the  foundations  for 
a  wider,  international  morality,  as  woman's  con- 
cern for  feeding  her  children  had  made  the  begin- 
nings of  an  orderly  domestic  life.  We  are  told 
that  when  the  crops  of  grain  and  roots  so  pains- 
takingly produced  by  primitive  women  began  to 
have  a  commercial  value  their  production  and  ex- 
change were  taken  over  by  the  men,  as  men  later 
turned  the  manufacturing  of  pottery  and  other  of 
woman's  early  industries  into  profit  making  activi- 
ties. Such  a  history,  suggested  that  this  situa- 
tion might  be  woman's  opportunity  if  only  be- 
cause foods  were,  during  the  war,  no  longer  con- 
sidered primarily  in  regard  to  their  money-mak- 
ing value  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  hu- 
man use.  Because  the  production  of  food  was, 
for  the  moment,  dependent  upon  earlier  motives, 
it  had  fallen  back  Into  woman's  hands.  There 
had  developed  a  wide  concern  for  the  feeding  of 
hungry  people,  an  activity  with  which  women  were 
normally  connected. 

As  I  had  felt  the  young  immigrant  conscripts 
caught  up  into  a  great  world  movement,  which 
sent  them  out  to  fight,  so  It  seemed  to  me  the 
millions  of  American  women  might  be  caught  up 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         83 

into  a  great  world  purpose,  that  of  conservation 
of  life;  there  might  be  found  an  antidote  to  war 
in  woman's  affection  and  all-embracing  pity  for 
helpless  children. 

Certainly  compassion  Is  not  without  its  social 
utility.  Up  to  the  present  moment  the  nations,  in 
their  foreign  policies,  have  conspicuously  lacked 
that  humane  quality  which  has  come  in  their  do- 
mestic policies  through  the  increasing  care  for  the 
poor,  and  the  protection  of  children.  These  have 
been  responsible  for  all  sorts  of  ameliorative  legis- 
lation during  the  later  years,  in  one  nation  after 
another.  In  their  relations  to  each  other,  how- 
ever, nations  have  been  without  such  motives  of 
humanitarian  action  until  the  Allied  nations,  dur- 
ing the  war,  evolved  a  strikingly  new  foreign 
policy  in  their  efforts  to  relieve  the  starvation  and 
distress  throughout  widespread  areas. 

There  are  such  unexpected  turnings  in  the  paths 
of  moral  evolution  that  it  would  not  be  without 
precedent  that  a  new  and  powerful  force  might 
be  unloosed  in  the  world  when  the  motive  for  pro- 
ducing and  shipping  food  on  the  part  of  great  na- 
tions was  no  longer  a  commercial  one  but  had  for 
the  moment  shifted  to  a  desire  to  feed  hungry 
people  with  whose  governments  they  had  entered 
into  obligations.  Such  a  force  might  in  the  fu- 
ture have  to  be  reckoned  with  as  a  factor  In  Inter- 
national affairs. 


84      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

In  those  dark  years,  so  destructive  of  the  old 
codes,  the  nations  were  forced  back  to  their  tribal 
function  of  producing  and  conserving  food  in 
contrast  to  the  methods  of  modern  commerce. 
All  food  supplies  had  long  been  collected  and 
distributed  through  the  utilization  of  the  com- 
mercial motive.  When  it  was  commercially  valu- 
able to  a  man,  to  a  firm  or  nation,  food  was  ship- 
ped; when  it  was  not  commercially  valuable,  food 
was  withheld  or  even  destroyed.  At  that  mo- 
ment, however,  the  Allied  Nations  were  collecting 
and  conserving  a  common  food  supply  and  each  na- 
tion was  facing  the  necessity  of  making  certain 
concessions  to  the  common  good  that  the  threat 
of  famine  for  all  might  be  averted.  A  new  in- 
ternationalism was  being  established  day  by  day; 
the  making  of  a  more  reasonable  world  order,  so 
cogently  urged  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  was  to  some  extent  already  under  way,  the 
war  itself  forming  its  matrix. 

There  was  a  substitution  of  the  social  utility 
motive  for  that  of  commercial  gain,  energized  pity 
for  that  of  business  enterprise.  Mr.  Hoover  had 
said :  "The  wheat  loaf  has  ascended  in  the  imag- 
ination of  enormous  populations  as  the  positive 
symbol  of  national  survival."  It  seemed  as  if  the 
age-long  lack  of  organization  between  the  na- 
tions, the  dearth  of  human  relationships  In  world 
politics,  was  about  to  be  corrected,  because  an 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         85 

unspeakable  disaster  had  forced  the  nations  to 
consider  together  the  primitive  questions  of  fam- 
ine and  pestilence.  It  was  possible  that  a  new 
international  ethic  was  arising  from  these  humble 
beginnings,  as  the  defense  and  feeding  of  the  de- 
pendent members  of  the  tribe  had  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  tribal  loyalty  and  of  national  existence 
itself.  In  spite  of  the  great  mass  of  social  data 
accumulated  in  the  last  century,  in  spite  of  wide- 
spread intellectual  training,  there  has  been  no  suc- 
cessful attempt  to  reduce  the  chaos  of  human 
affairs  into  a  rational  world  order.  Society  failed 
to  make  a  community  of  nations  and  was  at  last 
tragically  driven  to  the  beginnings  of  one  along 
the  old  primitive  folkways,  as  if  in  six  thousand 
years  no  other  method  could  have  been  devised. 
It  seemed,  therefore,  a  great  historic  achieve- 
ment that  there  should  have  been  devised  a  work- 
able method  for  the  collective  purchase  of  food, 
to  prohibit  profiteering  in  "the  precious  stuff  that 
men  live  by,"  even  for  the  duration  of  the  war. 
We  had  all  been  much  impressed  by  the  methods 
of  food  distribution  in  Belgium.  Fifteen  million 
dollars  each  month  were  lent  to  that  unhappy  na- 
tion by  the  United  States,  which  had  taken  over 
the  responsibility  of  feeding  her  beleaguered 
population.  This  amount  was  spent  in  the  United 
States  for  food  and  its  value  was  carefully  con- 
sidered by  the  Division  of  Research  in  Nutritive 


86      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Value  in  the  Department  of  Food  Administration. 
This  Division  undertook  to  know,  as  well  as  sci- 
ence could  tell,  what  were  the  necessary  daily  ra- 
tions to  maintain  health  and  strength  in  the  sev- 
eral occupations,  and  how  the  requirements  could 
best  be  met  from  the  stores  on  hand.  Such  words 
as  "adequate  nutrition"  and  "physiological  values" 
had  been  made  practical  issues  and  the  adminis- 
trative world  represented  by  governmental  officials 
was  then  seriously  considering  the  production  of 
food  and  the  feeding  of  human  beings  in  the  light 
of  pure  science. 

As  a  result,  the  political  relations  at  least  be- 
tween Belgium  and  her  Allies  had  completely 
shifted  from  the  commercial  to  the  humanitarian. 
To  quote  again  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Hoover's: 
"For  three  years  three  million  bushels  monthly  of 
North  American  wheat,  largely  from  the  charity 
of  the  world,  has  been  the  daily  bread  of  ten  mil- 
lion human  beings  In  Belgium  and  Northern 
France.  To  those  who  doled  out  this  scant  al- 
lowance, wheat  became  indelibly  the  precious  sym- 
bol of  life." 

To  transfer  this  concern  for  food  into  the  in- 
ternational field  was  to  enlarge  Its  functions  enor- 
mously as  well  as  to  increase  its  proportions.  The 
Allied  Nations  had  seriously  undertaken  to  solve 
the  problem  of  producing  with  the  utmost  econ- 
omy of  human  labor  the  largest  amount  of  food 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         87 

and  of  distributing  that  food  to  the  points  of 
greatest  need,  they  had  been  forced  to  make  in- 
ternational arrangements  for  its  distribution,  ex- 
actly as  intelligently  as  they  were  producing  war 
supplies. 

It  was  easier  to  do  this  because  each  of  the 
Allied  Nations,  in  additions  to  feeding  the  sol- 
diers and  the  munition  makers  who  were  directly 
concerned  in  the  tragic  business  of  "winning  the 
war,"  had  also  become  responsible  for  feeding  its 
entire  civilian  population.  The  appointment  of 
food  controllers,  the  issuing  of  bread  cards  and 
the  system  of  rationing,  was  undertaken  quite 
as  much  in  the  interest  of  just  dealing  in  food  sup- 
plies as  for  food  conservation  itself.  The  British 
government,  in  the  winter  of  19 16,  when  we  were 
constantly  speaking  on  food  conservation  as  such, 
had  undertaken  the  responsibility  of  providing  the 
British  Isles  with  all  its  imported  food,  and  other 
belligerent  and  neutral  nations  had  been  obliged 
to  pursue  the  same  course  in  order  to  avert  starva- 
tion. Commercial  competition  had  been  sup- 
pressed, not  in  response  to  any  theory,  but  be- 
cause it  could  not  be  trusted  to  Teed  the  feeble 
and  helpless.  The  European  governments  had 
been  compelled  to  undertake,  as  the  consequence 
of  the  shortage  in  materials,  the  single-handed 
purchase  of  their  supplies  both  for  civil  and  mili- 
tary purposes.    There  had  grown  up  an  enormous 


88      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

consolidation  of  buying  for  a  hundred  and  twenty 
million  European  people — a  phenomenon  never 
before  witnessed  in  the  economic  history  of  the 
world. 

With  this  accomplishment,  it  seemed  reasonable 
to  hope  for  world  order  in  other  directions  as  well. 
Certainly  some  of  the  obstructions  were  giving 
way.  An  English  economist  had  said  in  19 17: 
"The  war  has,  so  far,  in  Europe  generally,  thrown 
the  customs  tariff  flat."  Were  they,  perhaps,  dis- 
appearing under  this  onslaught  of  energized  pity 
for  world-wide  needs,  and  was  a  motive  power, 
new  in  the  relations  between  nations  being  evolved 
in  response  to  hunger  and  dependence  as  the 
earliest  domestic  ethics  had  been?  It  was  becom- 
ing clear  that  nations  cannot  oppose  their  political 
frontiers  as  an  obstacle  to  free  labor  and  exchange 
without  suffering  themselves  and  causing  suffer- 
ing; that  the  world  was  faced  with  a  choice  be- 
tween freedom  in  international  commerce  or  in- 
ternational conflicts  of  increasing  severity.  Under 
this  new  standard  of  measurement,  preferential 
tariffs  would  inevitably  disappear  because  the  na- 
tion denied  the  open  door  must  suffer  in  its  food 
supplies;  the  control  of  strategic  waterways  or  in- 
terstate railroad  lines  by  any  one  nation  which 
might  be  tempted  to  consider  only  the  interest  of 
its  own  commerce,  would  become  unthinkable. 
All  that  then  would  be  necessary  to  secure  the  in- 


A  REVIEW  OF  BREAD  RATIONS         89 

ternationalization  of  the  Straits  of  Bosphorus 
would  be  a  demonstration  of  the  need  in  Western 
Europe  for  Russian  wheat,  which  had  hitherto 
been  exported  so  capriciously;  the  international 
building  and  control  of  a  railroad  into  Mesopo- 
tamia would  depend,  not  upon  the  ambition  of 
rival  nations,  but  upon  the  world's  need  of  the 
food  which  could  again  be  secured  from  the  ca- 
pacious valley  of  the  Euphrates  by  the  restoration 
of  the  canal  system  so  long  ago  destroyed.  Serbia 
would  be  assured  a  railroad  to  the  sea  through  a 
strip  of  international  territory,  because  ready  ac- 
cess to  sea-going  ships  is  so  necessary  to  a  nation's 
food  and  because  one  of  the  principal  causes  of 
the  economic  friction  that  so  often  lies  behind 
wars  is  the  fear  of  countries  that  have  no  ports 
lest  the  neighboring  country  through  which  their 
export  and  import  trade  has  to  pass  should  hamper 
and  interrupt  the  transit. 

Certainly  during  the  winter  of  19 16-17  I'  P^^- 
sonally,  came  to  believe  it  possible  that  the  more 
sophisticated  questions  of  national  grouping 
and  territorial  control  would  gradually  adjust 
themselves  if  the  paramount  human  question  of 
food  for  the  hungry  were  fearlessly  and  drastically 
treated  upon  an  international  basis.  I  ventured 
further,  that  the  League  of  Nations,  upon  which 
the  whole  world,  led  by  President  Wilson,  was 
fastening  its  hopes,  might  be  founded  not  upon 


go     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

broken  bits  of  international  law,  but  upon  min- 
istrations to  primitive  human  needs. 

Much  had  been  said  during  the  war  about  primi- 
tive emotion  and  instinctive  action,  but  certainly 
their  use  need  not  be  reserved  to  purposes  of  de- 
struction. After  all,  the  first  friendly  communi- 
cation between  tribe  and  tribe  came  through  the 
need  of  food  when  one  or  the  other  was  starving 
and  too  weak  to  fight;  primitive  human  compas- 
sion made  the  folkway  which  afterward  developed 
into  political  relationships.  I  dared  to  believe 
that  this  early  human  instinct  to  come  together  in 
order  to  avert  widespread  starvation  could  not  be 
forever  thwarted  by  appeals  to  such  later  sepa- 
ratist instincts  as  nationalism  and  therefore  urged 
that  the  gates  be  opened  and  that  these  primitive 
emotions  be  allowed  to  flood  our  devastated 
world.  By  all  means  let  the  beneficent  tide  be 
directed  and  canalized  by  the  proposed  League  of 
Nations  which  was,  after  all,  the  outgrowth  of 
century  old  dreams. 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR  AND  WAR 

SLOGANS. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  winter  of  19 16-17  that 
the  astounding  news  came  of  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion. Perhaps  it  was  because  this  peasant  revolu- 
tion reminded  me  of  Bondereff's  "Bread  Labour," 
a  sincere  statement  of  the  aspirations  of  the 
Russian  peasants,  that  the  events  during  the  first 
weeks  of  the  revolution  seemed  to  afford  a  sharp 
contrast  between  the  simple  realities  of  life  and 
the  unreal  slogans  with  which  the  war  was  being 
stimulated.  Years  of  uncertainty,  of  conflicting 
reports,  and  of  disillusionment,  which  have  fol- 
lowed the  Russian  Revolution  of  March  1917, 
make  it  difficult  to  recall  our  first  impressions  of 
the  most  astounding  phenomenon  in  this  astound- 
ing world  as  the  two  thousand  miles  of  Russian 
soldiers  along  the  Eastern  Front  in  the  days  fol- 
lowing the  abdication  of  the  Czar  talked  end- 
lessly to  their  enemy  brothers  in  the  opposing 
trenches. 

During  their  long  conversation  the  Russian 
peasant  soldiers  were  telling  the  East  Prussian 

91 


92      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

peasant  soldiers  what  Bondereff  and  other  peasant 
leaders  had  told  them :  that  the  great  task  of  this 
generation  of  Russians  is  to  "free  the  land"  as  a 
former  generation  had  already  freed  the  serfs  and 
slaves;  that  the  future  of  the  Russian  peasant  de- 
pends not  upon  garrisons  and  tax  gatherers  but 
upon  his  willingness  to  perform  "bread  labor"  on 
his  recovered  soil,  and  upon  his  ability  to  extend 
good  will  and  just  dealing  to  all  men.  With  their 
natural  inference  that  there  was  no  longer  any 
need  to  carry  on  the  Czar's  war  was  an  over- 
whelming eagerness  to  get  back  to  the  land  which 
they  believed  was  at  last  to  be  given  those  who 
actually  tilled  it.  They  doubtless  said  that  the 
peasants  had  long  been  holding  themselves  in 
readiness  for  the  great  revolution  which  would 
set  men  free  from  brutal  oppression.  They  be- 
lieved that  this  revolution  must,  before  all,  repair 
"the  great  crime,"  which  in  their  minds  was  al- 
ways the  monopolization  of  the  land  by  a  few 
thousand  men  with  the  resulting  enslavement  of 
millions  of  others.  The  revolution  must  begin  in 
Russia  because  no  people  are  so  conscious  of  this 
iniquity  as  the  Russian  people.  Their  absorption 
in  the  revolution  and  their  inveterate  land  hunger 
caused  many  Russian  peasants  to  regard  the  world 
war  itself  as  a  mere  interruption  to  the  fulfillment 
of  their  supreme  obligation. 

It  was  certainly  the  wisdom  of  the  humble,  the 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR      93 

very  counsel  of  imperfection,  which  was  exempli- 
fied by  this  army  of  tattered  men,  walking  so 
naively  in  the  dawning  light.  But  they  may  have 
been  "the  unhindered  and  adventuring  sons  of 
God,"  as  they  renounced  warfare  in  favor  of  their 
old  right  to  labor  in  the  ground.  Some  of  them 
in  the  earliest  days  of  the  revolution  made  a  pil- 
grimage to  Tolstoy's  grave  in  the  forest  of  Kadaz 
and  wrote  these  words  upon  a  piece  of  paper  which 
they  buried  in  the  leaf  mold  lying  loosely  above 
him:  "Love  to  neighbors,  nay  the  greatest  love 
of  all,  love  to  enemies,  is  now  being  accomplished." 
In  the  Russian  peasant's  dread  of  war  there  has 
always  been  a  passive  resistance  to  the  reduction 
of  the  food  supply,  because  he  well  knows  that 
when  a  man  is  fighting  he  ceases  to  produce  food 
and  that  the  world  will  at  length  be  in  danger 
of  starvation.  Next  to  the  masses  of  India  and 
China,  the  Russian  peasants  feel  the  pinch  of 
hunger  more  frequently  than  any  other  people  on 
earth.  Russia  is  the  land  of  modern  famines; 
the  present  one  was  preceded  by  those  of  1891, 
1906,  and  191 1.  The  last,  still  vivid  in  the 
memory  of  men  at  the  front,  affected  thirty 
million  people,  and  reduced  eight  million  people 
to  actual  starvation.  The  Russian  peasant  saw 
three  and  a  half  years  of  the  Great  War,  during 
which  time,  according  to  his  own  accounting, 
seven   million   of  his   people   perished   and   the 


94     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Russian  soldiers,  never  adequately  equipped  with 
ammunition,  food  and  clothing,  were  reduced 
to  the  last  extremity.  To  go  back  to  his  village, 
to  claim  his  share  of  food,  to  till  the  ground  as 
quickly  as  possible,  was  to  follow  an  imperative 
and  unerring  instinct.  In  his  village,  if  anywhere, 
he  would  find  bread.  Prince  Kropotkin  in  his 
"Conquest  of  Bread" — written  nearly  twenty 
years  ago — predicted  that  so  soon  as  The  Revolu- 
tion came,  the  peasant  would  keep  enough  bread 
for  himself  and  his  children,  but  that  the  towns 
and  cities  would  experience  such  a  dearth  of  grain 
that  "the  farmers  in  America  could  hardly  be  able 
to  cover  it."  But  he  adds:  "There  will  be  an  in- 
crease of  production  as  soon  as  the  peasant 
realizes  that  he  is  no  longer  forced  to  support  the 
idle  rich  by  his  toil.  New  tracts  of  land  will  be 
cleared  and  improved  machines  set  agoing  .... 
Never  was  the  land  so  energetically  cultivated  as 
by  the  French  peasants  in  1792," 

In  line  with  these  peasant  traditions,  the  first 
appeal  issued  by  the  All  Russian  Peasant  Union 
to  the  soldier  still  at  the  front  read  in  this  wise : 

"Remember,  brothers  that  the  Russian  army  is 
a  peasant  army,  comprising  now  the  best  men  of 
the  whole  peasantry;  that  the  Russian  land  is  the 
peasant's  land;  that  the  peasant  is  the  principal 
toiler  on  this  land — he  is  its  master,  therefore, 
without  the  master  it  is  impossible  to  solve 
properly  the  land  question." 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR     95 

Peasants  all  over  the  world  magnify  and  con- 
sider obligatory  labor  in  the  ground,  but  the  Rus- 
sian peasant  adds  to  this  urge  for  bread  labor  a 
religious  motive  revealed  in  his  formal  greeting 
to  his  fellow-workman  in  the  field :  "To  every  man 
his  measure  of  grain,  and  may  every  man  in  the 
world  be  a  Christian."  This  mystic  connection 
between  piety  and  bread  labor  has,  of  course,  been 
expressed  in  many  forms;  to  quote  from  an 
English  poet: 

"And  when  I  drove  the  clods  apart 
Christ  would  be  plowing  in  my  heart." 

Or  from  a  French  one : 

"Au  milieu  du  grand  silence,  le  pays 
se  recusille  soucieusement,  tandis  que,  pas 
a  pas,  priante,  la  Lucie  laisse,  un  a  un, 
tomber  les  grains  qui  luisent." 

Or  from  a  Norwegian : 

"The  sower  walked  bare-headed  in  Jesu's  name. 
Every  cast  was  made  with  care  in  a  spirit  of  kindly 
resignation;  so  it  is  throughout  all  the  world 
where  corn  is  sown.   .   .   .  little  showers  of  grain 
flung  at  famine  from  the  sower's  hand." 

Certainly  tilling  the  soil,  living  a  life  of  mutual 
labor  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  many  religious 
orders  and  mystic  social  experiments.  From  this 
point  of  view,  Tolstoy  had  rejoiced  that  groups  of 


96     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Russian  peasants  had  never  owned  land  but  had 
worked  it  always  with  the  needs  of  the  whole  vil- 
lage in  mind,  thus  keeping  close  to  Christian  teach- 
ing and  to  a  life  of  piety. 

That  this  instinct  of  bread  labor,  the  very  an- 
tithesis of  war,  is  wide-spread  may  be  easily  de- 
monstrated. A  newspaper  clipping  on  my  desk 
contains  a  dispatch  from  Bressa  in  Asia  Minor, 
which  reads  as  follows :  "The  country  had  been 
revived  by  rains  with  the  awakening  of  spring,  and 
peasants  are  seen  working  in  the  fields,  kissing  the 
earth  and  thanking  Allah  for  the  blessed  rain  and 
also  praying  for  peace  and  the  riddance  from  the 
lands  of  the  soldiers  marching  across  to  war." 

When  we  were  in  Austria-Hungary  in  191 5,  we 
were  constantly  told  stories  of  Russian  soldiers 
who  throughout  the  spring  had  easily  been  taken 
prisoners  because  they  had  heard  that  war  prison- 
ers in  Austria  were  working  upon  the  land.  These 
Russian  peasant  soldiers  had  said  to  their  captors, 
now  that  spring  had  come  they  wanted  to  get 
back  to  work,  and  so  they  would  like  to  be  made 
prisoners  at  least  long  enough  to  put  the  seed  into 
the  ground.  They  wished  to  put  seed  into  the 
ground  irrespective  of  its  national  or  individual 
ownership. 

I  recall  an  evening  years  ago  when  I  sat  in  the 
garden  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  that  Tolstoy  begged 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR     97 

us  to  remember  that  the  Russian  peasant  did  not 
change  his  nature  when  he  shed  his  blouse  and  put 
on  the  Czar's  coat.  Tolstoy  predicted  that  the 
Russian  peasants  in  their  permanent  patience, 
their  insatiable  hunger  for  bread  labor,  may  at 
last  make  war  impossible  to  an  entire  agricultural 
people.  It  is  hard  to  determine  whether  the  Rus- 
sian soldiers  who,  in  19 17,  refused  to  fight,  had 
merely  become  so  discouraged  by  their  three  years 
of  futile  warfare  and  so  cheered  by  the  success  of 
a  bloodless  revolution  in  Petrograd  and  Moscow 
that  they  dared  to  venture  the  same  tactics  in  the 
very  trenches,  or  whether  these  fighting  men  in 
Galicia  yielded  to  an  instinct  to  labor  on  the  land 
which  is  more  primitive  and  more  imperative  than 
the  desire  for  war. 

During  the  early  days  of  the  Russian  revolu- 
tion it  seemed  to  me  that  events  bore  out  the  as- 
sumption that  the  Russian  peasants,  with  every 
aspect  of  failure,  were  applying  the  touchstone  of 
reality  to  certain  slogans  evolved  during  the  war, 
to  unreal  phrases  which  had  apparently  gripped 
the  leading  minds  of  the  world.  It  was  in  fact 
the  very  desire  on  the  part  of  the  first  revolution- 
ists in  the  spring  of  19 17  to  stand  aside  from 
political  as  well  as  from  military  organizations 
and  to  cling  only  to  what  they  considered  the  tan- 
gible realities  of  existence,  which  was  most  diffi- 


98     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

cult  for  the  outside  world  to  understand.  The 
speculation  as  I  recall  it,  evolved  in  my  mind  some- 
what as  follows: 

The  many  Allied  nations  in  the  midst  of  a 
desperate  war,  were  being  held  together  by  cer- 
tain formulae  of  their  war  aims  which  had  grad- 
ually emerged  during  long  years  of  mutual  effort. 
Such  stirring  formulae  or  statements  could  be 
common  to  all  the  diverse  Allies,  however,  only  if 
they  took  on  the  abstract  characteristics  of  gen- 
eral principles.  This  use  of  the  abstract  state- 
ment, necessary  in  all  political  relationships,  be- 
comes greatly  intensified  in  time  of  war,  as  if  il- 
lustrating the  contention  that  men  die  willingly 
only  for  a  slogan.  The  question  inevitably  sug- 
gested itself:  Had  the  slogans — this  is  a  war 
to  end  war  and  a  war  to  safeguard  the  world  for 
democracy — become  so  necessary  to  united  mili- 
tary action  that  the  Allies  resented  the  naive  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  the  Russian  peasants  to 
achieve  democracy  without  war?  They  so  firmly 
believed  that  the  aims  of  the  war  could  only  be 
accomplished  through  a  victory  of  the  Allies  that 
they  would  not  brook  this  separation  of  the  aim 
from  the  method.  Apparently  the  fighting  had 
become  an  integral  part  of  the  slogan  itself. 

The  necessity  for  holding  fast  to  such  phrases 
suggests  one  of  those  great  historic  myths  which 
large  bodies  of  men  are  prone  to  make  for  them- 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR     99 

selves  when  they  unite  In  a  common  purpose  re- 
quiring for  its  consummation  the  thorough  and 
efficient  output  of  moral  energy.  Mankind  is  so 
fertile  in  virtue  and  heroism,  so  prone  to  transcend 
his  own  powers,  that  the  making  and  unmaking  of 
these  myths  always  accompanies  a  period  of  great 
moral  awakening.  Such  myths  are  almost  cer- 
tain to  outlast  their  social  utility,  and  very  often 
they  outlive  their  originators;  as  the  myth  of  The 
Second  Coming  evolved  by  the  Early  Christians 
held  for  a  thousand  years. 

Had  this  myth  of  our  contemporaries  that  De- 
mocracy is  to  be  secured  through  war,  so  obsessed 
the  Allies  that  they  were  constrained  to  insist  that 
the  troops  fight  it  out  on  the  eastern  front  as  else- 
where, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  fraternal  inter- 
course, which  the  Russians  were  employing.  Is  the 
very  matrix  of  Democracy?  Had  war  so  mili- 
tarized and  clericalized  the  leading  nations  of  the 
world  that  it  was  difficult  for  them  to  believe  that 
the  Russian  soldiers,  having  experienced  that  puri- 
fication of  the  imagination  and  of  the  intellect 
which  the  Greeks  believed  to  come  through  pity 
and  terror,  had  merely  been  the  first  to  challenge 
the  myth,  to  envisage  the  situation  afresh  and  re- 
duce it  to  its  human  terms ! 

Vernon  Lee  contends  that  it  is  the  essential 
characteristic  of  an  historic  myth  that  so  long  as  it 
does  not  attempt  to  produce  its  own  realization, 


lOO    PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

it  begets  unhesitating  belief  and  wholesale  action 
and  that  as  men  go  on  expressing  it  with  sufficient 
self-denying  fervor,  they  secure  a  great  output  of 
sanctity  and  heroism.  The  necessity  for  con- 
tinuing this  output,  of  unifying  diverse  nations, 
may  account  for  the  touch  of  fear  easily  detected 
on  the  part  of  the  ardent  advocates  of  war,  when 
they  were  asked  not  to  ignore  the  fact  that  at 
least  on  one  front  war  was  actually  ending  under 
conditions  of  disarmament  and  free  trade.  They 
did  not  admit  that  democracy  could  be  established 
throughout  one-sixth  of  the  earth's  surface  only 
if  the  Allies  would  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
Russian  soldiers  had  ceased  to  fight;  Kerensky's 
group,  or  any  other  remaining  in  power,  would  at 
length  have  been  obliged  to  acknowledge  it  for  no 
governmental  group  could  have  been  upheld  by  the 
Russian  people  unless  it  had  declared  for  peace 
and  for  free  land. 

Did  the  Allies  fear  to  jar  the  abstraction  which 
had  become  so  dear  to  them?  Did  they  realize 
instinctively  that  they  would  cripple  the  usefulness 
of  a  slogan  by  acknowledging  its  partial  achieve- 
ment? 

It  was  perhaps  to  be  expected  that  Russia 
should  be  the  first  nation  to  apply  the  touchstone 
of  reality  to  a  warring  world  so  absorbed  in  ab- 
stractions. If  Tolstoy  may  be  considered  in  any 
sense  the  prototype  of  his  countrymen,  it  may  be 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR    loi 

permitted  to  cite  his  inveterate  dislike  of  ab- 
stractions, whether  stated  in  philosophic,  patriotic 
or  religious  terms;  his  firm  belief  that  such  ab- 
stractions lay  the  foundation  for  blind  fanaticism; 
his  oft-repeated  statement  that  certain  forms  of 
patriotism  are  inimical  to  a  life  of  reason. 

At  that  time  the  Allied  nations  were  all  learn- 
ing to  say  that  the  end  of  this  war  would  doubtless 
see  profound  political  changes  and  democratic  re- 
construction, when  the  animalistic  forces  which 
are  inevitably  encouraged  as  a  valuable  asset  in 
warfare,  should  once  more  be  relegated  to  a  sub- 
ordinate place.  And  yet  when  one  of  the  greatest 
possible  reconstructions  was  actually  happening  be- 
fore their  very  eyes,  the  war-weary  world  insisted 
that  the  Russian  soldier  should  not  be  permitted 
to  return  to  the  land  but  should  continue  to  fight. 
This  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  Alhed  Govern- 
ments suggests  that  they  were  so  obsessed  by  the 
dogmatic  morality  of  war,  in  which  all  humanly 
tangible  distinctions  between  normal  and  abnormal 
disappear,  that  they  were  literally  blind  to  the 
moral  implications  of  the  Russian  attempt. 

The  Russian  soldiers,  suddenly  turned  into  pro- 
pagandists, inevitably  exhibited  a  youthful  self- 
consciousness  which  made  their  own  emotional  ex- 
perience the  center  of  the  universe.  Assuming 
that  others  could  not  be  indifferent  to  their  high 
aims,  they  placidly  insisted  upon  expounding  their 


102    PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

new-found  hopes.  But  all  this  made  the  war- 
ring world,  threatened  with  defeat  if  the  German 
army  on  the  eastern  front  were  released,  still  more 
impatient. 

Possibly,  as  a  foolish  pacifist,  wishing  to  see 
what  was  not  there,  I  gave  myself  over  to  idle 
speculation.  It  may  be  true  that  the  spiritual 
realism  as  well  as  the  real  politik  was  with  the 
Allied  statesmen  who  forced  Kerensky  to  keep  his 
men  at  war  even  at  the  price  of  throwing  Russia 
into  dire  confusion. 

These  statesmen  considered  the  outcome  of  the 
Russian  Revolution  of  little  moment  compared  to 
the  future  of  civilization  which  was  then  imper- 
illed by  the  possibility  of  a  German  victory  if  the 
men  on  the  eastern  front  were  allowed  to  reinforce 
the  west.  But  such  an  assumption  based  on  the 
very  doctrines  of  war,  was  responsible  for  Brest 
Litovsk;  for  "peace  after  a  smashing  victory;" 
for  the  remarkable  terms  in  the  Versailles  treaty; 
for  Trotsky's  huge  army;  for  much  of  the  present 
confusion  in  the  world.  Did  the  Russians,  for 
one  golden  moment,  offer  a  way  out?  or  was  the 
present  outcome  inevitable? 

Three  times  in  crucial  moments  in  the  world's 
history  and  with  a  simple  dramatic  gesture  have 
representatives  of  Russia  attempted  to  initiate 
the  machinery  which  should  secure  permanent 
peace  for  all  nations. 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR    103 

First:  the  proposals  of  the  Russian  Czar,  Alex- 
ander I,  in  1 8 15,  at  the  Peace  Conference  follow- 
ing the  Napoleonic  Wars,  for  "An  AU-Embracing 
Reform  of  the  political  system  of  Europe  which 
should  guarantee  universal  peace"  and  the  result- 
ing Holy  Alliance  which,  according  to  historians, 
did  not  succeed  "owing  to  the  extremely  religious 
character  in  which  it  was  conceived," 

Second :  the  calling  of  the  first  Hague  Confer- 
ence by  Nicholas  II,  in  1899.  His  broad  outline 
of  the  work  which  such  a  conference  ought  to  do 
was  considered  "too  idealistic"  by  the  other 
powers,  who  tried  to  limit  the  function  of  the 
Hague  Conferences  to  the  reduction  of  arma- 
ments and  to  the  control  of  the  methods  of  war- 
fare. 

Third:  the  spontaneous  effort  of  the  first  Rus- 
sian revolutionists  to  break  through  the  belief  that 
any  spiritual  good  can  be  established  through  the 
agency  of  large  masses  of  men  fighting  other  large 
masses  and  their  naive  attempt  to  convert  in- 
dividual soldiers.  The  string  of  Russian  soldiers 
talking  to  their  recent  enemies  stretched  from  the 
Baltic  sea  to  the  Carpathian  Mountains.  These 
simple  men  assumed  that  men  wished  to  labor  In 
the  soil  and  did  not  wish  to  fight,  while  all  the  rest 
of  the  world  remained  sceptical  and  almost  re- 
joiced over  the  failure  of  the  experiment,  before 
It  had  really  been  tried.     Certainly  the  world  was 


104    PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

in  no  mood  just  then  to  listen  to  "mere  talk."  It 
was  resounding  with  a  call  to  arms. 

With  our  Anglo-Saxon  crispness  of  expression 
we  are  prone  to  be  amused  at  the  Russian's  in- 
veterate habit  of  discussion  and  to  quote  with  tol- 
erant contempt  the  old  saying:  "Two  Russians — 
three  opinions,"  without  stopping  to  reflect  that 
the  method  has  in  practice  worked  out  excellently 
for  the  self-governing  administration  of  village  af- 
fairs throughout  an  enormous  territory. 

When  the  first  detachment  of  Russian  Doukho- 
boritsi  were  settling  in  Western  Canada,  they  dis- 
cussed for  two  and  a  half  days  and  two  nights  the 
location  of  the  three  villages  into  which  the  de- 
tachment was  divided.  One  possible  site  was  very 
much  more  desirable  than  the  other  two  and  the 
Anglo-Saxon  onlooker  feared  that  this  factor 
alone  might  indefinitely  prolong  the  difficulty  of 
decision.  But  not  at  all — the  discussion  came  to 
a  natural  end,  the  matter  was  settled  and  never 
again  reopened  nor  was  the  disparity  and  the  de- 
sirability of  the  locations  ever  again  referred  to 
by  anyone  concerned.  The  matter  had  been  satis- 
factorily settled  in  the  prolonged  discussion  by  all 
the  "souls"  entitled  to  participate.  It  proved 
after  all  to  have  been  a  very  good  way. 

We  forget  that  to  obtain  the  "inner  consent" 
of  a  man  who  differs  from  us  is  always  a  slow 
process,  that  quite  as  It  is  quicker  to  punish  an  un- 


A  SPECULATION  ON  BREAD  LABOR    105 

ruly  child  than  to  bring  him  to  a  reasonable  state 
of  mind;  to  imprison  a  criminal  than  to  reform 
him;  to  coerce  an  ignorant  man  than  to  teach  him 
the  meaning  of  the  law,  so  it  is  quicker  to  fight 
armies  of  men  than  to  convince  them  one  by  one. 

A  curious  and  very  spontaneous  manifestation 
of  good-will  towards  Russia  occurred  in  Chicago 
in  the  spring  of  19 18.  A  society  was  organized 
with  the  slogan :  "Ten  Million  Pairs  of  Shoes  for 
Russia,"  and  ten  thousand  old  shoes  were  actually 
collected  and  placed  in  a  warehouse.  The  pro- 
motors  contended  that  all  of  the  Russian  peasants 
knew  how  to  work  in  leather  and  could  make  their 
own  shoes  if  they  but  had  the  material  with  which 
to  work.  In  response  to  the  objection  that  even 
if  it  were  practicable  to  send  the  shoes  they  might 
easily  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Germans,  the  reply 
was  always  the  same;  that  although  there  might 
be  a  risk  of  Germany's  seizing  the  goods  sent  into 
Russia,  if  the  United  States  did  nothing  at  all  in 
Russia's  period  of  greatest  distress  and  need,  we 
ran  the  risk  that  Germany  would  obtain  the  good- 
will of  all  Russia  and  that  America  would  suffer 
an  alienation  and  misunderstanding  from  which 
we  might  never  recover.  Of  course,  Anglo-Saxon 
good  sense  prevailed  in  the  end  and  the  collected 
shoes  were  never  sent,  although  there  is  no  doubt 
that  even  such  a  homely  expression  of  good-will 
would  have  been  most  valuable  for  the  future  re- 


io6   PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

iations  between  the  two  countries.  Throughout 
the  discussion  I  sometimes  remembered  what  a 
famous  British  statesman  wrote  to  Charles  Sum- 
ner In  1862  concerning  the  cotton  spinners  of  Lan- 
cashire who  were  starving  owing  to  the  with- 
drawal of  Southern  cotton,  but  who  nevertheless 
held  to  their  principle  that  slave-grown  cotton  was 
an  infamy:  "Our  people  will  be  kept  alive  by  the 
contributions  of  this  country  but  I  see  that  some- 
one in  the  States  had  proposed  to  send  something 
to  our  aid.  If  a  few  cargoes  of  flour  could  come, 
say  50,000  barrels,  as  a  gift  from  persons  in  your 
northern  states  to  the  Lancashire  workmen,  it 
would  have  a  prodigious  effect  in  your  favor 
here." 

No  one  will  be  able  to  say  how  much  it  might 
have  affected  the  sentiment  toward  the  United 
States  if  such  a  humble  cargo  of  good  will  had 
early  left  our  shores  for  Russia,  how  it  might  have 
become  the  harbinger  of  other  cargoes  so  long  de- 
layed! 


CHAPTER  VI. 

AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED. 

The  first  meeting  of  our  national  Board,  con- 
vened after  the  declaration  of  war,  was  in  Octo- 
ber, 19 1 7,  in  a  beautiful  country  house  at  which 
the  members,  arriving  from  New  York,  Boston, 
Philadelphia,  St.  Louis  and  Chicago,  appeared  as 
the  guests  at  a  house  party,  none  of  the  friends  of 
the  hostess  ever  knowing  that  we  had  not  been 
invited  upon  a  purely  social  basis. 

It  was  a  blessed  relief  to  be  in  communication 
with  likeminded  people  once  more  and  to  lose 
somewhat  the  sense  of  social  disapprobation  and 
of  alienation  of  which  we  had  become  increasingly 
conscious.  After  three  days'  deliberation  the 
Board  issued  a  special  manifesto  to  the  various 
branches,  beginning  with  the  statement: 

"All  the  activities  of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party 
have  been,  of  course,  modified  by  the  entrance  of 
the  United  States  into  the  World  War.  *  *  * 

"We  have  avoided  all  criticism  of  our  Govern- 
ment as  to  the  declaration  of  war,  and  all  activities 
that  could  be  considered  as  obstructive  in  respect 

107 


io8     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

to  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  this  not  as  a  counsel 
of  prudence,  but  as  a  matter  of  principle." 

Because  we  saw  even  then  that  there  was  an 
element  of  hope  in  the  international  administra- 
tion of  food  supplies  and  of  other  raw  materials 
and  clutched  at  it  with  something  of  the  tra- 
ditional desperation  of  the  drowning  man,  the 
manifesto  ended  as  follows: 

*  *  *  "We  recognize  that  an  alliance  between 
seventeen  nations  in  both  hemispheres  cannot  be 
confined  to  military  operations.  We  rejoice  in 
the  fact  that  the  United  States  of  America  has 
already  taken  common  action  with  the  Allies  in  re- 
gard to  the  conservation  and  distribution  of  food 
supplies  and  other  matters,  quite  outside  the  mili- 
tary field,  which  require  international  cooperation. 
We  venture  to  hope  that  conferences  of  this  type 
may  be  extended  until  they  develop  into  an  inter- 
national organization  sitting  throughout  the  war. 

"An  Interparliamentary  conference  thus  de- 
veloped might  from  the  nucleus  of  a  permanent  in- 
ternational parliament  eventually  open  to  all  na- 
tions. Such  an  organization  of  a  World  Parlia- 
ment, arising  in  response  to  actual  world  needs,  is 
in  line  with  the  genesis  and  growth  of  all  perma- 
nent political  Institutions." 

We  could  not  then  realize  how  very  difficult  it 
would  be  to  make  our  position  clear,  and  not  for  a 
long  time  did  we  sense  the  control  of  public  opln* 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED    109 

ion  and  of  all  propaganda,  which  is  considered  nec- 
essary for  the  successful  inauguration  and  conduct 
of  war.  What  we  were  perhaps  totally  unpre- 
pared for  as  the  war  continued  was  the  general  un- 
willingness to  admit  any  defect  in  the  institution 
of  war  as  such,  or  to  acknowledge  that,  although 
exhibiting  some  of  the  noblest  qualities  of  the  hu- 
man spirit,  it  yet  affords  no  solution  for  vexed  in- 
ternational problems;  further  we  believed  that 
after  war  has  been  resorted  to,  its  very  existence, 
in  spite  of  its  superb  heroisms  and  sacrifices  which 
we  also  greatly  admired,  tends  to  obscure  and  con- 
fuse those  faculties  which  might  otherwise  find  a 
solution.  There  was  not  only  a  reluctance  to  dis- 
cuss the  very  issues  for  which  the  war  was  being 
fought,  but  it  was  considered  unpatriotic  to  talk 
about  them  until  the  war  had  been  won. 

Even  in  the  third  month  of  the  war,  when  asked 
to  give  an  address  before  the  City  Club  of  Chicago 
on  "Patriotism  and  Pacifists  in  War  Time,"  I 
tried  quite  guilelessly  to  show  that  while  the  posi- 
tion of  the  pacifist  in  time  of  war  is  most  difficult, 
nevertheless,  the  modern  peace  movement,  since 
it  was  inaugurated  three  hundred  years  ago,  had 
been  kept  alive  throughout  many  great  wars,  and 
that  even  during  the  present  one  some  sort  of 
peace  organization  had  been  maintained  in  all  of 
the  belligerent  nations.  Our  own  Woman's  In- 
ternational Committee  for  Permanent  Peace  had 


no     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

organized  branches  since  the  war  began  in  such 
fighting  nations  and  colonies  as  Australia,  Austria, 
Belgium,  Canada,  Finland,  Germany,  Great 
Britain,  Ireland,  Hungary,  British  India,  Italy, 
France,  Poland  and  Russia.  I  ventured  to  hope 
the  United  States  would  be  as  tolerant  to  pacifists 
in  time  of  war  as  those  countries  had  been,  some 
of  which  were  fighting  for  their  very  existence, 
and  that  our  fellow-citizens,  however  divided  in 
opinion,  would  be  able  to  discuss  those  aspects  of 
patriotism  which  endure  through  all  vicissitudes. 

It  is  easy  enough  now  to  smile  at  Its  naivete, 
but  even  then  we  were  dimly  conscious  that  in  the 
stir  of  the  heroic  moment  when  a  nation  enters 
war,  when  men's  minds  almost  without  volition 
are  driven  back  to  the  earliest  obligations  of 
patriotism,  the  emotions  move  along  the  worn 
grooves  of  blind  admiration  for  the  soldier  and  of 
unspeakable  contempt  for  him  who.  In  the  hour  of 
danger,  declares  that  fighting  Is  unnecessary.  We 
were  not  surprised,  therefore,  when  apparently 
striking  across  and  reversing  this  popular  con- 
ception of  patriotism,  we  should  be  called  traitors 
and  cowards,  but  it  seemed  to  us  all  the  more  nec- 
essary to  demonstrate  that  in  our  former  advo- 
cacy we  were  urging  a  reasonable  and  vital  alter- 
native to  war.  Only  slowly  did  the  pacifist  real- 
ize that  when  his  fellow  countrymen  are  caught  up 
by  a  wave  of  tremendous  enthusiasm  and  are  car- 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  in 

ried  out  into  a  high  sea  of  patriotic  feeling  the 
very  virtues  which  the  pacifist  extols  are  brought 
into  unhappy  contrast  to  those  which  war,  with  its 
keen  sense  of  a  separate  national  existence,  places 
in  the  foreground. 

Yet  in  spite  of  this  sober  reasoning  It  was  a 
distinct  shock  to  me  to  learn  that  it  had  been  diffi- 
cult to  secure  a  chairman  to  preside  over  the  City 
Club  meeting  at  which  I  spoke,  and  that  even  my 
old  friends  were  afraid  that  the  performance  of 
this  simple  office  would  commit  them  to  my  pacifist 
position.  I  later  lectured  on  the  same  subject  at 
the  University  of  Chicago,  trying  to  be  as  "sweetly 
reasonable"  as  possible,  but  only  to  come  out  of 
the  hall  profoundly  discouraged,  having  learned 
the  lesson  that  during  war  It  is  Impossible  for  the 
pacifist  to  obtain  an  open  hearing.  Nevertheless, 
we  continued  to  talk,  not  from  a  desire  of  self- 
defense  or  justification,  I  think,  for  we  had  long 
since  abandoned  any  such  hope,  but  because  we 
longed  actually  to  modify  the  headlong  course  of 
events. 

In  the  general  mass  of  misunderstanding  and 
deliberate  misrepresentation  some  things  were 
harder  to  bear  than  others.  We  were  constantly 
accused  of  wishing  to  Isolate  the  United  States 
and  to  keep  our  country  out  of  world  politics.  We 
were,  of  course,  urging  a  policy  exactly  the  reverse, 
that  this  country  should  lead  the  nations  of  the 


112      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

world  into  a  wider  life  of  co-ordinated  political 
activity;  that  the  United  States  should  boldly 
recognize  the  fact  that  the  vital  political  problems 
of  our  time  have  become  as  intrinsically  interna- 
tional in  character  as  have  the  commercial  and 
social  problems  so  closely  connected  with  them. 
It  seemed  to  us  that  the  United  States  had  to  her 
credit  a  long  account  for  the  spread  of  democratic 
institutions  during  the  years  when  she  was  at  peace 
with  the  rest  of  the  world.  Her  own  experiment 
as  a  republic  was  quickly  followed  by  France,  and 
later  by  Switzerland,  and  to  the  south  of  her  a  vast 
continent  contains  no  nation  which  fails,  through 
many  vicissitudes,  to  maintain  a  republican  form 
of  government.  We  also  hoped  to  make  clear 
that  it  has  long  been  the  aim  of  our  own  govern- 
ment and  of  similar  types  throughout  the  world 
to  replace  coercion  by  the  full  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, to  educate  and  strengthen  the  free  will  of 
the  people  through  the  use  of  democratic  institu- 
tions; that  this  age-long  process  of  obtaining  the 
inner  consent  of  the  citizen  to  the  outward  acts  of 
his  government  is  of  necessity  violently  interrupted 
and  thrown  back  in  war  time. 

Then  some  of  us  had  once  dreamed  that  the 
cosmopolitan  inhabitants  of  this  great  nation 
might  at  last  become  united  in  a  vast  common  en- 
deavor for  social  ends.  We  hoped  that  this  fus- 
ing might  be  accomplished  without  the  sense  of 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED    113 

opposition  to  a  common  enemy  which  is  an  old 
method  of  welding  people  together,  better  fitted 
for  military  than  for  social  use,  adapted  to  a 
government  resulting  from  coercion  rather  than 
one  founded  by  free  men. 

We  had  also  hoped  much  from  the  varied  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States;  for  whether  we  will 
or  not,  our  very  composition  would  make  it  easier 
for  us  than  for  any  other  nation  to  establish  an 
international  organization  founded  upon  under- 
standing and  good  will,  did  we  but  possess  the  re- 
quisite courage  and  intelligence  to  utilize  it.  There 
were  in  this  country  thousands  of  emigrants  from 
Central  Europe,  to  whom  a  war  between  the 
United  States  and  the  fatherland  meant  exquisite 
torture.  They  and  their  inheritances  were  a  part 
of  the  situation  which  faced  the  United  States  in 
the  spring  of  1917;  they  were  a  source  of  great 
strength  in  an  international  venture,  as  they  were 
undoubtedly  a  source  of  weakness  in  a  purely  na- 
tionalistic position  of  the  old-fashioned  sort. 
These  ties  of  blood,  binding  us  to  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth,  afforded,  it  seemed  to  us,  a  unique 
equipment  for  a  great  international  task  if  the 
United  States  could  but  push  forward  into  the 
difficult  area  of  internationalism.  Then  too,  the 
great  war  had  already  demonstrated  that  modern 
warfare  is  an  intimately  social  and  domestic  affair. 
The  civilian  suffering  and,  in  certain  regions,  the 


114      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

civilian  mortality,  were  as  great  as  that  endured 
by  the  soldiers.  There  were  thousands  of  our  fel- 
low citizens  who  could  not  tear  their  minds  away 
from  Poland,  Galicia,  Syria,  Armenia,  Serbia, 
Roumania,  Greece,  where  their  own  relatives  were 
dying  from  diseases  superinduced  by  hardship  and 
hunger.  To  such  sore  and  troubled  minds  war 
had  come  to  be  a  horror  which  belonged  to  Europe 
alone,  and  was  part  of  that  privation  and  oppres- 
sion which  they  had  left  behind  them  when  they 
came  to  America,  Newly  immigrated  Austrian 
subjects  of  a  dozen  nationalities  came  to  their 
American  friends  during  the  weeks  of  suspense 
before  war  was  declared,  utterly  bewildered  by 
the  prospect  of  war.  They  had  heard  not  three 
months  before  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  did  not  believe  in  war — for  so  the  campaign 
had  been  interpreted  by  many  simple  minds — and 
they  had  concluded  that  whatever  happened,  some 
more  American  way  would  be  found.  Pacifists 
hoped  that  this  revolution  in  international  re- 
lationships which  had  been  steadily  approaching 
for  three  hundred  years  and  was  already  long 
over-due,  could  best  be  obtained  after  the  war,  if 
the  United  States  succeeded  in  protecting  and  pre- 
serving the  higher  standards  of  internationalism. 
We  were  not  unmindful  of  the  hope  for  an  inter- 
national organization  to  be  formed  at  the  end  of 
the  war.     But  it  seemed  to  us  that  for  thirty- 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  115 

three  months  Europe  had  been  earnestly  striving 
to  obtain  through  patriotic  wars,  that  which  could 
finally  be  secured  only  through  international  or- 
ganization. Millions  of  men,  loyal  to  one  inter- 
national alliance,  were  gallantly  fighting  millions 
of  men  loyal  to  another  International  alliance,  be- 
cause of  Europe's  inability  to  make  an  alliance  in- 
cluding them  all. 

We  also  realized  that  ever  since  the  European 
war  began,  the  United  States  had  been  conscious 
of  a  failure  to  respond  to  a  moral  demand;  she 
had  vaguely  felt  that  she  was  shirking  her  share  in 
a  world  effort  toward  the  higher  good;  she  had 
had  black  moments  of  compunction  and  shame  for 
her  own  immunity  and  safety.  Could  she  hope 
through  war  to  assuage  the  feverish  thirst  for 
action  she  had  felt  during  all  those  three  years? 
There  Is  no  doubt  that  she  made  the  correct  diag- 
nosis of  her  case,  of  her  weariness  with  a  selfish, 
materialistic  life  and  of  her  need  for  concerted, 
self-forgetting  action.  But  was  blood-letting  a 
sufficiently  modern  remedy  for  such  a  diagnosis? 
Would  she  lose  her  sense  of  futility  and  her  con- 
sciousness of  moral  failure,  when  thousands  of 
her  young  men  were  facing  the  dangers  of  war? 
Would  she  not  still  feel  her  Inadequacy  unless  she 
was  able  to  embody  In  a  permanent  organization 
the  cosmopolitanism  which  Is  the  essence  of  her 
spirit?    We  feared  she  would  not  be  content  when 


ii6      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

she  was  obliged  to  organize  food  supplies  solely 
for  one  group  of  nations,  for  the  United  States 
owed  too  much  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
whose  sons  had  developed  her  raw  prairies  into 
fertile  fields,  to  allow  the  women  and  children  of 
any  of  them  to  starve. 

At  that  moment  the  final  outcome  of  the  war 
was  apparently  to  be  decided  quite  as  much  by  food 
supply  as  by  force  of  arms.  Two  terrible  questions 
were  in  men's  minds.  Could  Germany  hold  out 
during  the  spring  and  early  summer  until  the  new 
crop  was  garnered?  Could  England  feed  herself 
were  the  U-boat  campaign  in  any  degree  success- 
ful? For  decades  civilized  nations  had  confidently 
depended  upon  other  nations  for  their  supply  of 
cattle  and  of  grain  until  this  long  continued  war 
had  brought  the  primitive  fear  of  starvation  back 
into  the  world  with  so  many  other  elemental  ter- 
rors. 

Again  and  again  we  came  back  for  comfort  to 
the  fact  that  the  creation  of  an  international  or- 
ganization of  the  Allies  and  Associated  Powers 
for  the  control  of  their  common  food  supply,  was 
clearly  transcending  old  national  bounds.  It 
might  be  a  new  phase  of  political  unification  in  ad- 
vance of  all  former  achievements,  or  it  might  be 
one  of  those  shifting  alliances  merely  for  war 
purposes,  of  which  European  history  affords  so 
many  examples. 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  117 

After  war  was  declared,  events  moved  with  sur- 
prising rapidity.  We  had  scarcely  returned  from 
Washington  where  we  had  been  advocating  a  re- 
ferendum on  the  declaration  of  war  before  we 
were  back  there  again,  this  time  protesting  before 
the  Military  Affairs  Committee  that  the  measure 
of  conscription  should  not  be  passed  without  an 
appeal  to  the  country,  without  an  expression  of 
opinion  from  the  simple  people  who  form  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  soldiery  in  every  war. 

The  most  poignant  moment  during  the  war  and 
the  preparations  for  It,  so  far  as  I  personally  was 
concerned,  came  upon  me  suddenly  one  morning 
after  a  wretched  night  of  Internal  debate.  For 
many  years  one  of  the  large  rooms  at  Hull-House 
had  been  used  for  a  polling  place  of  the  precinct, 
one  election  after  another  had  been  held  there  for 
some  of  which,  after  the  women  of  Illinois  had 
secured  a  large  measure  of  the  franchise,  I  had 
served  as  a  judge  of  election.  The  room  that 
morning  was  being  used  to  register  the  men  for 
the  first  draft.  In  they  came  somewhat  heavily, 
one  man  after  another,  most  of  them  South  Ital- 
ians. I  knew  many  of  them  had  come  to  this 
country  seeking  freedom  from  military  service 
quite  as  much  as  they  sought  freedom  of  other 
sorts,  and  here  they  were  about  to  be  securely 
caught  once  more.  The  line  of  dull  workmen 
seemed  to  me  to  represent  the  final  frontier  of  the 


ii8      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

hopes  of  their  kind,  the  traditional  belief  in 
America  as  a  refuge  had  come  to  an  end  and  there 
was  no  spot  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  to  which 
they  might  flee  for  security.  All  that  had  been 
told  them  of  the  American  freedom,  which  they 
had  hoped  to  secure  for  themselves  and  their 
children,  had  turned  to  ashes.  I  said  nothing  be- 
yond the  morning's  greeting,  but  one  of  the  men 
stopped  to  speak  to  me.  He  had  been  in  the  Hull- 
House  citizenship  classes,  and  only  a  few  months 
before  I  had  delivered  a  little  address  to  those  of 
the  class  who  had  received  their  first  papers,  com- 
bining congratulations  with  a  welcome  into  the  citi- 
zenship of  the  United  States.  The  new  citizen 
turned  to  me  and  spoke  from  the  bitterness  of  his 
heart:  *'I  really  have  you  to  thank  if  I  am  sent 
over  to  Europe  to  fight.  I  went  into  the  citizen- 
ship class  in  the  first  place  because  you  asked  me 
to.  If  1  hadn't  my  papers  now  I  would  be  ex- 
empted." I  could  only  reply  that  none  of  us  knew 
what  was  going  to  happen  and  added,  for  what 
comfort  it  might  give  him,  that  at  any  rate  he 
would  be  fighting  on  the  side  of  Italy.  But  the 
incident  did  not  add  to  my  peace  of  mind. 

Partly  because  one  of  the  residents  of  Hull- 
House  served  as  secretary  to  the  local  Draft 
Board,  partly  because  the  men  were  accustomed 
to  come  to  the  settlement  for  help  of  various 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  119 

kinds,  we  assisted  many  hundreds  of  them  to  fill 
out  their  questionnaires.  The  docility  of  the  men 
was  surprising;  they  were  only  too  familiar  with 
the  whole  process  and  had  long  ago  accepted  it  as 
a  part  of  life.  The  women  sometimes  begged  us 
not  to  put  down  the  ages  of  the  little  boys  lest  it 
might  make  it  easier  later  for  the  government  to 
conscript  them,  and  they  sometimes  added: 
"They  did  this  way  over  there,  but  we  did  not 
think  it  would  be  this  way  over  here."  When  we 
served  luncheons  at  Hull-House  to  the  young  men 
about  to  entrain  for  camp,  the  women  folk  were 
not  admitted  but  hung  in  great  crowds  about  the 
door,  men  and  women  alike  entangled  in  a  great 
world  process  of  which  they  had  no  conception;  it 
seemed  to  me  at  moments  as  if  the  whole  theory 
of  self-government  founded  upon  conscious  par- 
ticipation and  inner  consent,  had  fallen  to  the 
ground. 

Later  there  were  many  cases  of  the  immigrant 
bewildered  and  angered  by  the  tax  upon  his  former 
wages — an  ex  post  facto  arrangement  which  was 
equally  trying  to  the  employer  and  the  immigrant, 
and  proved  so  unworkable  that  It  finally  had  to  be 
abandoned.  It  was,  however,  a  visible  sign  to  the 
immigrant  that  he  was  suspect  and  undesirable, 
although  he  had  come  to  the  country  in  good  faith 
and  sincerely  loved  America,  but  loved  it  perhaps 


I20     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

as  Lincoln  once  said  of  Henry  Clay,  "partly  be- 
cause it  was  his  own  and  partly  because  it  was  a 
free  country." 

It  is  impossible  to  live  for  years  among  immi- 
grants and  to  fail  to  catch  something  of  their 
deep-seated  hopes  for  the  country  of  their  adop- 
tion, to  realize  that  the  thought  of  America  has 
afforded  a  moral  safety  valve  to  generations  of 
oppressed  Europeans.  War  and  its  conscriptions 
were  something  which  belonged  to  the  unhappy 
Europe  they  had  left  behind.  It  was  as  if  their 
last  throw  had  been  lost.  Of  the  450,000,000 
people  in  Europe  400,000,000  were  already  in- 
volved in  the  war.  Could  the  United  States  do 
nothing  more  intelligent  than  to  add  its  quota  of 
100,000,000  people  more? 

When  it  became  evident  that  the  measure  for 
conscription  would  pass,  those  of  us  who  had 
known  something  of  the  so-called  conscientious 
objector  in  England  hoped  that  we  might  at  least 
obtain  similar  provisions  for  him  in  the  United 
States.  Although  the  English  tribunals  had 
power  to  grant  absolute  exemption  from  military 
service,  there  were  in  England  at  that  time  ap- 
proximately six  thousand  men  imprisoned  or  in- 
terned in  addition  to  the  number  who  were  per- 
forming non-military  service  on  the  continent  in 
such  organizations  as  the  Friends'  Ambulance 
Units. 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  121 

A  committee  of  us  waited  upon  the  Secretary 
of  War,  begging  him  to  recommend  like  provision 
in  the  conscription  measure  then  under  considera- 
tion. The  Secretary  was  ready  to  talk  to  our 
committee,  each  member  of  which  could  claim 
either  acquaintance  or  friendship  with  him  in  the 
years  before  the  war.  He  seemed  so  sympathetic 
and  understanding  that  possibly  we  made  too 
much  of  his  somewhat  cryptic  utterance  that 
"there  would  be  no  conscientious  objector  prob- 
lem in  the  United  States,"  and  we  left  his  office 
more  reassured  perhaps  than  we  had  any  right 
to  be. 

It  became  evident  In  a  very  few  weeks  that  no 
provision  of  any  sort  was  to  be  made  for  the  con- 
scientious objector  as  such.  Each  man  who  ob- 
jected to  war  could  choose  his  own  method  of  mak- 
ing his  protest  and  be  punished  accordingly.  If 
he  failed  to  report  for  his  assigned  camp  he  was 
tried  as  a  "deserter,"  if  he  refused  to  put  on  the 
uniform,  the  charge  was  insubordination;  if  he  de- 
clined to  drill  or  to  obey  an  order,  he  might  be 
court-martialed  under  the  charge  of  resisting  an 
officer,  with  a  wide  range  of  penalties,  including 
imprisonment  at  Fort  Leavenworth.  Thus  each 
camp  had  opportunity  to  treat  the  conscientious 
objector  according  to  its  own  standard,  but  above 
all  he  was  to  be  given  no  opportunity  to  make  a 
dignified  statement  of  his  own  case,  no  chance  "to 


122      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

play  the  martyr  or  to  hang  out  the  white 
flag." 

I  saw  the  Secretary  of  War  twice  again  on  the 
matter,  once  with  a  committee  and  once  alone,  but 
it  was  evident  that  he  had  taken  the  same  stand 
later  formulated  by  the  Administration  in  regard 
to  other  political  prisoners,  that  there  could  be  no 
such  thing  as  a  political  offense  in  a  democracy; 
each  man  was  arrested  for  breaking  a  law  and 
tried  as  a  criminal.  Any  other  course  might  have 
laid  the  government  open  to  the  charge  of  suppres- 
sing a  minority,  which  was  to  be  avoided.  The 
reformer  in  politics  knew  only  too  well  how  to  deal 
with  the  reformer  out  of  politics.  The  latter  was 
hoist  by  his  own  petard. 

Only  after  hundreds  of  men  had  been  placed  in 
military  prisons  and  separated  in  military  camps 
under  charge  of  violation  of  various  sections  of 
the  military  code,  was  a  board  appointed  to  re- 
view their  cases,  beginning  work  in  June,  19 19. 
This  federal  board  endeavored  to  undo  some  of 
the  injustices  of  the  camps  and  to  work  out  a  sys- 
tem which,  however  vulnerable,  was  removed 
from  the  whim  of  individuals. 

The  word  conscientious  objector  did  not  exactly 
apply  to  many  of  these  young  men  whom  I  came 
to  know,  it  is  too  rigid  and  too  individualistic. 
Many  of  them  felt  that  war  was  archaic  and  they 
were  enveloped  in  a  profound  scepticism  as  to  the 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED         123 

possibility  of  securing  democracy  for  the  world 
through  destruction  of  other  young  men  possibly 
holding  the  same  ideals  for  the  future  which  they 
themselves  cherished.  They  believed  that  any  in- 
ternational league  would  have  the  best  chance  of 
success  if  it  were  started  when  the  currents  of 
brotherhood  were  flowing  more  strongly  between 
the  nations  than  is  possible  immediately  after  war. 

In  various  ways  I  met  many  of  them.  I  always 
urged  each  one  if  possible  to  conform  to  the  mili- 
tary regulations.  When  a  man  himself  decided 
that  it  was  impossible  I  invariably  heard  his  decis- 
ion with  a  sinking  of  the  heart.  I  recall  a  man 
who  was  one  of  three  to  object  to  war  out  of  five 
thousand  students  in  his  college.  He  was  segre- 
gated in  an  eastern  camp  and  afterwards  allowed 
to  work  under  the  Friends'  Service  Committee  in 
France,  but  finding  that  even  non-combatant 
service  did  not  bring  him  relief,  returned  from 
abroad  preferring  imprisonment  to  what  seemed 
to  him  a  dodging  of  the  issue.  Another  had 
worked  among  war  prisoners  for  nine  months 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  He  found 
that  he  was  being  suspected  of  pacifism  and  was 
constantly  watched  and  challenged  by  what 
amounted  to  a  secret  service  system  within  the  or- 
ganization itself;  it  was  a  great  relief  for  him  to 
come  home  and  "face  the  music,"  as  he  put  it. 

The  sort  of  appeal  to  which  he  and  his  high- 


124      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

minded  kind  were  most  persistently  subjected 
could  but  recall  the  remark  attributed  to  the  em- 
peror Diocletian  as  he  saw  the  lions  in  the  arena 
rip  the  throat  of  a  young  Christian:  "that  youth 
refused  the  military  oath  because  his  superstition 
commanded  its  followers  not  to  bind  themselves 
by  swearing  not  to  resist  evil.  These  pitiful 
wretches  enjoy  the  peace  and  splendor  of  Rome 
but  will  not  move  a  finger  to  protect  or  to  extend 
either."  In  all  the  centuries  since,  the  state  had 
found  no  better  argument  with  which  to  coerce  its 
minority  who  disapproved  through  religious 
scruple.  But  the  early  Christian  could  at  least 
frankly  call  himself  a  martyr,  and  although  he 
did  not  know  that  his  blood  would  become  the 
seed  of  the  Church,  he  did  know  that  he  was  bear- 
ing testimony  to  a  new  religion  destined  in  time 
to  supersede  that  of  Diocletian;  and  the  emperor 
himself,  if  he  derided  the  new  religion,  at  the 
same  time  more  or  less  accurately  defined  it.  Such 
satisfaction  as  that  knowledge  might  have  given 
to  the  young  Christians  of  Rome  was  persistently 
denied  the  conscientious  objector  in  the  United 
States,  and  thousands  of  our  fellow  citizens  to  this 
day  quite  honestly  confuse  them  with  slackers. 

Their  history  as  inmates  of  federal  prisons  is 
being  written  and  may  yet  inaugurate  a  chapter  in 
prison  reform,  as  the  strike  so  successfully  led  by 
them  in  Leavenworth  resulted  in  a  brief  trial  of 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED         125 

self-government  for  the  entire  prison.  The  tests 
in  psychiatry  showed  that  the  average  mentality 
of  the  conscientioius  objector  had  registered  well 
above  that  of  the  drafted  men  throughout  the 
country  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  many  of  their 
number  had  inherited  their  objections  to  war  from 
teachings  of  simple  religious  sects  and  had  never 
individually  thought  out  their  positions.  Perhaps 
these  latter  at  moments  tasted  martyrdom,  but  the 
more  sophisticated  men  would  have  none  of  it. 
Even  the  man  tied  by  his  wrists  to  the  barred  door 
of  his  cell  for  eight  hours  a  day  endeavored  to 
keep  free  from  self-pity.  In  a  letter  written  to  me 
from  Leavenworth  prison  I  find  this  statement: 

"We  do  not  think  we  are  martyrs  any  more 
than  a  soldier  taken  prisoner  by  the  enemy  is  a 
martyr." 

Because  years  before  I  had  been  somewhat 
identified  with  the  immigration  of  the  Doukho- 
bortsi,  a  non-resistant  Russian  sect  in  whom  Tol- 
stoy had  been  much  interested,  I  found  myself  ap- 
pealed to  on  behalf  of  a  frightened  little  widow 
who  was  at  the  moment  desperately  holding  at  bay 
the  entire  military  prison  system.  Her  husband 
had  been  one  of  "those  obstinate  cases  who  cling 
to  a  scriptural  text  and  will  not  listen  to  reason." 
During  his  long  imprisonments  he  had  been 
treated  in  all  sorts  of  barbarous  ways  and  finally, 
after  a  prolonged  ducking  under  a  faucet  in  the 


126      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

prison  yard  on  a  freezing  day,  had  contracted 
pneumonia  and  died.  He  had  originally  and  con- 
tinuously taken  his  stand  against  putting  on  the 
uniform,  and  when  his  wife  arrived  at  Leaven- 
worth to  take  away  the  body,  to  her  horror  she 
found  that  body,  at  last  unable  to  resist,  dressed 
in  a  soldier's  uniform.  Her  representative  who 
came  to  see  me,  with  his  broken  English,  could 
convey  but  feebly  the  sense  of  outrage,  of  unfair- 
ness, of  brutal  disregard  of  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  of  the  ruthless  overriding  of  personality 
which  this  incident  had  aroused  among  thousands 
of  Doukhobortsi. 

In  camp  and  even  in  prison  the  conscientious 
objectors  were  constantly  subjected  to  tremendous 
pressure  by  the  chaplains  to  induce  them  to  change 
their  position,  although  in  a  sense  they  were  de- 
nied the  comforts  of  religion.  Certainly  the  rest 
of  us  were.  I  recall  going  to  church  one  beautiful 
summer's  day  in  19 17  when  the  family  whom  I 
was  visiting  urged  me  to  hear  a  well  known  Bishop 
preach  in  the  village  church.  The  familiar  words 
of  the  service  could  not  be  changed  but  the  bishop 
was  belligerent  from  his  very  first  utterance  and 
his  peroration  ended  with  the  statement  that  if 
"Jesus  were  living  to-day  he  would  be  fighting  in 
the  trenches  of  France."  Not  a  word  of  the  anx- 
ious, pitying,  all-embracing  love  for  lack  of  which 
the  world  was  perishing! 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  127 

It  was  inevitable  under  these  circumstances  that 
new  religious  organizations  should  develop.  The 
Fellowship  of  Reconciliation  had,  during  19 15, 
attracted  to  its  membership  in  Chicago  a  score  of 
people,  a  few  clergymen,  one  or  two  publicists  and 
others  who  felt  the  need  of  meeting  with  like- 
minded  people,  and  at  least  comparing  their 
scruples  and  religious  difficulties.  We  usually  met 
in  private  houses  on  a  social  basis,  as  it  were,  not 
so  much  because  we  felt  that  a  meeting  discussing 
the  teachings  of  Jesus  could  be  considered  "se- 
ditious," but  from  a  desire  to  protect  from  pub- 
licity and  unfriendly  discussion  the  last  refuge  that 
was  left  us.  We  did  not  succeed  even  in  that,  al- 
though the  unfair  and  hostile  publicity  came  in 
a  very  curious  way  through  the  office  of  the 
Woman's  Peace  Party,  which  one  would  suppose 
to  be  more  open  to  attack  than  the  Fellowship. 
Throughout  the  war  the  national  office  of  the 
Woman's  Peace  Party  was  kept  open  in  a  down- 
town office  building  in  Chicago.  We  did  not  re- 
move any  of  our  records,  being  conscious  that  we 
had  nothing  to  hide,  and  our  list  of  members  with 
their  addresses  was  to  be  found  in  a  conspicuous 
card  catalogue  case.  It  was  often  far  from  pleas- 
ant to  enter  the  office.  If  a  bit  of  mail  protruded 
from  the  door  it  was  frequently  spat  upon,  and  al- 
though we  rented  our  quarters  in  a  first  class  office 
building  on  Michigan  boulevard  facing  the  lake, 


128     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

the  door  was  often  befouled  in  hideous 
ways. 

The  secret  service  men  finally  entered  the  office 
in  search  of  material  not  directly  against  us,  but 
against  the  Fellowship  of  Reconciliation,  which 
they  considered  as  designed  to  lessen  the  morale 
of  war.  I  have  just  read  over  some  of  the  news- 
paper clippings;  it  is  easy  now  to  smile  at  their  ab- 
surd efforts  to  give  a  sinister  meaning  to  two 
such  innocuous  words  as  Fellowship  and  Recon- 
ciliation, but  at  the  moment  we  all  knew  that  it 
meant  one  more  group  put  upon  the  index,  as  it 
were,  and  one  more  successful  attempt  to  dis- 
credit pacifists.  The  only  defense  which  in  the 
least  appealed  to  the  newspaper  men  was  made 
by  one  of  themselves  to  the  effect  that  the  word 
reconciliation  was  very  like  in  sound  and  purport 
to  the  word  conciliation  and  that  Nicholas  Murray 
Butler  was  chairman  of  an  organization  to  pro- 
mote international  arbitration  and  conciliation, 
and  that  every  one  knew  he  was  for  the  war! 

The  Fellowship  of  course  continued  and  for- 
tunately was  never  disturbed  in  New  York  where 
its  national  office  was  located.  As  a  member  of 
the  executive  board  I  attended  its  meetings  as 
often  as  possible  and  always  found  a  certain  heal- 
ing of  the  spirit. 

The  conception  of  solidarity,  of  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth  to  be  achieved  by  a  band  of 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED  129 

brothers  leagued  against  the  world,  is  in  a  certain 
measure  always  found  among  the  adherents  of  an 
unpopular  cause.  At  the  annual  meeting  in  19 19, 
held  at  a  boys'  school  on  the  Hudson,  it  was  clear 
from  the  addresses  of  the  members  and  their  con- 
ferences together,  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
might  well  lead  to  difficult  positions  in  regard  to 
the  industrial  conflict  as  well  as  to  international 
wars,  and  that  the  use  of  violence  was  as  inadmis- 
sible in  one  place  as  in  the  other.  One  of  the 
young  clergymen  there  had  played  a  leading  role 
in  the  Lawrence  strike,  another  had  identified  him- 
self with  a  group  of  striking  workmen  in  Patter- 
son, New  Jersey.  No  one  there  who  had  been  a 
pacifist  in  war  time  minimized  the  difficulties 
ahead  of  these  young  men,  yet  they  received  only 
congratulations  upon  the  fact  that  they  had  been 
able  to  clarify  their  positions  and  to  find  a  clear 
line  of  action.  One  group  was  publishing  a 
journal,  another  announced  the  opening  of  a  new 
school,  a  third  was  still  doing  all  possible  to  secure 
legal  protection  for  men  upon  whom  the  espionage 
act  had  fallen  with  unusual  severity. 

The  fourth  annual  meeting  of  the  Woman's 
Peace  Party  was  held  in  Philadelphia,  at  the 
Friends'  Meeting  House,  in  December  19 17. 
Again  we  urged  each  other  to  promote  the  spirit 
of  good  will:  "Let  those  of  opposed  opinions  be 
loyal  to  the  highest  that  they  know,  and  let  each 


130     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

understand  that  the  other  may  be  equally  patri- 
otic;" to  work  for  a  League  of  Nations  and  to 
carry  on  the  old  effort  to  substitute  law  for  war. 

It  was  interesting  to  observe  at  the  Phila- 
delphia meeting  in  how  many  ways  the  members 
of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party  had  found  "the  ano- 
dyne of  work"  as  a  help  to  holding  fast  to  their 
convictions. 

The  national  secretary,  Mrs.  Mead,  reported 
her  wartime  addresses  in  many  states  where,  with 
the  use  of  tact,  she  found  no  difficulty  "even  in  a 
very  super-heated  atmosphere"  in  speaking  upon 
"The  New  Preparedness,"  "After  the  War, 
What?"  "Civic  Efficiency  in  Wartime,"  and  simi- 
lar topics.  Many  others  were  lecturing  on  the 
food  question;  Miss  Balch  had  published  a  book 
entitled  "Some  Approaches  to  the  Great  Settle- 
ment," but  for  the  most  part  work  was  difficult 
and  decreased  in  volume. 

It  was  only  at  the  very  closing  hour  of  the  meet- 
ing that  an  agent  came  from  the  Department  of 
Justice.  The  little  Quaker  lady  who  was  acting 
as  doorkeeper  for  the  conference  politely  asked 
him  to  wait  a  few  minutes,  as  the  conference  was 
devoting  its  closing  minutes  to  silent  prayer,  fall- 
ing into  the  custom  of  the  meeting  house  under 
whose  hospitable  roof  it  was  gathered.  When  he 
showed  his  credentials,  she  of  course  allowed  him 
to  open  the  door,  but  one  look  apparently  satis- 


AFTER  WAR  WAS  DECLARED    131 

fied  him,  and  but  for  the  headlines  in  the  papers 
next  morning  we  should  never  have  known  of  his 
presence. 

From  the  same  source  we  learned  that  the  agent 
meant  to  listen  to  my  talk  about  "America's  Obli- 
gation  and  the  World's  Food  Supply"  in  the 
chapel  of  the  Friends  College  at  Swarthmore  the 
next  day.  Candor  compels  me  to  state  that  al- 
though he  was  pointed  out  to  me  I  quickly  forgot 
all  about  him,  as  I  looked  over  the  goodly  group 
of  young  people,  many  of  whom  were  preparing 
to  enter  the  reconstruction  work  in  France  which 
the  Friends  Service  Committee  had  inaugurated. 
Some  of  them  were  sent  to  Russia  and  Poland,  and 
later  on  under  the  Hoover  organization,  fed  the 
hungry  in  many  countries  of  Europe.  They  were 
trying  to  find  "the  moral  equivalent  of  war,"  al- 
though many  of  them  with  divided  convictions  and 
with  heavy  hearts. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR. 

After  the  United  States  had  entered  the  war 
there  began  to  appear  great  divergence  among 
the  many  types  of  pacifists,  from  the  extreme  left, 
composed  of  non-resistants,  through  the  middle- 
of-the-road  groups,   to   the   extreme   right,  who 
could  barely  be  distinguished  from  mild  militarists,    i' 
There  were  those  people,  also,  who  although  they 
felt  keenly  both  the  horror  and  the  futility  of  war, 
yet  hoped  for  certain  beneficent  results  from  the    ; 
opportunities  afforded  by  the  administration  of    ^ 
war;  they  were  much  pleased  when  the  govern-  t 
ment  took  over  the  management  of  the  railroads,   | 
insisting  that  governmental  ownership  had  thus 
been  pushed  forward  by  decades;  they  were  also 
sure  that  the  War  Labor  Policies  Board,  the  Coal 
Commission  and  similar  war  institutions  would 
make  an  enormous  difference  In  the  development   ^ 
of  the  country.  In  short,  that  militarism  might  be   ■ 
used  as  an  instrument  for  advanced  social  ends.   : 
Such  justifications  had  their  lure  and  one  found  i: 
old  pacifist  friends  on  all  the  war  boards  and  I 
even  in  the  war  department  itself.     Certainly  we  : 

133 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    133 

were  all  eager  to  accept  whatever  progressive 
social  changes  came  from  the  quick  reorganization 
demanded  by  war,  and  doubtless  prohibition  was 
one  of  these,  as  the  granting  of  woman  suffrage 
in  the  majority  of  the  belligerent  nations,  was 
another.  But  some  of  us  had  suspected  that  social 
advance  depends  as  much  upon  the  process 
through  which  it  is  secured  as  upon  the  result  it- 
self; if  railroads  are  nationalized  solely  in  order 
to  secure  rapid  transit  of  ammunition  and  men  to 
points  of  departure  for  Europe,  when  that  gov- 
ernmental need  no  longer  exists  what  more  natural 
than  that  the  railroads  should  no  longer  be  man- 
aged by  the  government? 

My  temperament  and  habit  had  always  kept  me 
rather  in  the  middle  of  the  road;  in  politics  as  well 
as  in  social  reform  I  had  been  for  "the  best  pos- 
sible." But  now  I  was  pushed  far  toward  the 
left  on  the  subject  of  the  war  and  I  became  grad- 
ually convinced  that  in  order  to  make  the  position 
of  the  pacifist  clear  it  was  perhaps  necessary  that 
at  least  a  small  number  of  us  should  be  forced  into 
an  unequivocal  position.  If  I  sometimes  re- 
gretted having  gone  to  the  Woman's  Congress  at 
The  Hague  in  19 15,  or  having  written  a  book  on 
Newer  Ideals  of  Peace  in  191 1  which  had  made 
my  position  so  conspicuously  clear,  certainly  far 
oftener  I  was  devoutly  grateful  that  I  had  used 
such  unmistakable  means  of  expression  before  the 


134      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

time  came  when  any  spoken  or  written  word  In  the 
Interests  of  Peace  was  forbidden. 

It  was  on  my  return  from  The  Hague   Con- 
gress In  July,   19 1 5,  that  I  had  my  first  experi- 
ence of  the  determination  on  the  part  of  the  press 
to  make  pacifist  activity  or  propaganda  so  absurd 
that  it  would  be  absolutely  without  influence  and 
Its  authors  so  discredited  that  nothing  they  might 
say  or  do  would  be  regarded  as  worthy  of  atten- 
tion.    I  had  been  accustomed  to  newspaper  men 
for  many  years  and  had  come  to  regard  them  as  a 
good  natured  fraternity,  sometimes  Ignorant  of 
the  subject  on  which  they  asked  an  Interview,  but 
usually  quite  ready  to  report  faithfully  albeit  some- 
what   sensationally.       Hull-House    had    several 
times  been  the  subject  of  sustained  and  inspired 
newspaper  attacks,  one,  the  Indirect  result  of  an 
exposure  of  the  Inefficient  sanitary  service  in  the   i 
Chicago  Health  Department  had  lasted  for  many  i 
months;  I  had  of  course  known  what  It  was  to 
serve  unpopular  causes  and  throughout  a  period  of 
campaigning   for   the    Progressive    Party   I   had   . 
naturally  encountered  the  "opposition  press"  in 
various  parts  of  the  country,  but  this  concerted  \i 
and  deliberate   attempt  at  misrepresentation  on  1? 
the  part  of  newspapers  of  all  shades  of  opinion  ii< 
was   quite   new  In   my   experience.        After   the  :: 
United  States  entered  the  war,  the  press  through- 
out the  country  systematically  undertook  to  mis- 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    135 

represent  and  malign  pacifists  as  a  recognized  part 
of  propaganda  and  as  a  patriotic  duty.  We  came 
to  regard  this  misrepresentation  as  part  of  the  war 
technique  and  in  fact  an  inevitable  consequence  of 
war  itself,  but  we  were  slow  in  the  very  beginning 
to  recognize  the  situation,  and  I  found  my  first 
experience  which  came  long  before  the  United 
States  entered  the  war  rather  overwhelming. 

Upon  our  return  from  the  Woman's  Interna- 
tional Congress  at  The  Hague  in  19 15,  our  local 
organization  in  New  York  City  with  others, 
notably  a  group  of  enthusiastic  college  men,  had 
arranged  a  large  public  meeting  in  Carnegie  Hall. 
Dr.  Anna  Howard  Shaw  presided  and  the  United 
States  delegates  made  a  public  report  of  our  im- 
pressions in  "war  stricken  Europe"  and  of  the 
moral  resources  in  the  various  countries  we  visited 
that  might  possibly  be  brought  to  bear  against  a 
continuation  of  the  war.  We  had  been  much  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  it  was  an  old  man's  war, 
that  the  various  forms  of  doubt  and  opposition  to 
war  had  no  method  of  public  expression  and  that 
many  of  the  soldiers  themselves  were  far  from  en- 
thusiastic in  regard  to  actual  fighting  as  a  method 
of  settling  international  difficulties.  War  was  to 
many  of  them  much  more  anachronistic  than  to 
the  elderly  statesmen  who  were  primarily  responsi- 
ble for  the  soldiers'  presence  in  the  trenches. 

It  was  the  latter  statement  which  was  my  un- 


136      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

doing,  for  In  illustration  of  it  I  said  that  in  prac- 
tically every  country  we  had  visited,  we  had  heard 
a  certain  type  of  young  soldier  say  that  it  had 
been  difficult  for  him  to  make  the  bayonet 
charge  (enter  into  actual  hand  to  hand  fighting) 
unless  he  had  been  stimulated;  that  the  English 
soldiers  had  been  given  rum  before  such  a  charge, 
the  Germans  ether  and  that  the  French  were  said 
to  use  absinthe.  To  those  who  heard  the  address 
it  was  quite  clear  that  it  was  not  because  the  young 
men  flinched  at  the  risk  of  death  but  because  they 
had  to  be  inflamed  to  do  the  brutal  work  of  the 
bayonet,  such  as  disembowelling,  and  were  obliged 
to  overcome  all  the  inhibitions  of  civilization. 

Dr.  Hamilton  and  I  had  notes  for  each  of  these 
statements  with  the  dates  and  names  of  the  men 
who  had  made  them,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  me 
that  the  information  was  new  or  startling.  I  was, 
however,  reported  to  have  said  that  no  soldier 
could  go  into  a  bayonet  charge  until  he  was  made 
half  drunk,  and  this  in  turn  was  immediately  com- 
mented upon,  notably  in  a  scathing  letter  written 
to  the  New  York  Times  by  Richard  Harding 
Davis,  as  a  most  choice  specimen  of  a  woman's 
sentimental  nonsense.  Mr.  Davis  himself  had 
recently  returned  from  Europe  and  at  once  be- 
came the  defender  of  the  heroic  soldiers  who  were 
being  traduced  and  belittled.  He  lent  the  weight 
of  his  name  and  his  very  able  pen  to  the  cause, 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    137 

but  It  really  needed  neither,  for  the  misstatement 
was  repeated,  usually  with  scathing  comment, 
from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 

I  was  conscious,  of  course,  that  the  story  had 
struck  athwart  the  popular  and  long-cherished 
conception  of  the  nobility  and  heroism  of  the  sol- 
dier as  such,  and  It  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  that 
there  was  no  possibility  of  making  any  explana- 
tion, at  least  until  the  sensation  should  have  some- 
what subsided.  I  might  have  repeated  my  more 
sober  statements  with  the  explanation  that 
whomsoever  the  pacifist  held  responsible  for  war, 
it  was  certainly  not  the  young  soldiers  themselves 
who  were,  In  a  sense.  Its  most  touching  victims, 
"the  heroic  youth  of  the  world  whom  a  common 
ideal  tragically  pitted  against  each  other." 
Youth's  response  to  the  appeal  made  to  their  self- 
sacrifice,  to  their  patriotism,  to  their  sense  of  duty, 
to  their  high-hearted  hopes  for  the  future,  could 
only  stir  one's  admiration,  and  we  should  have 
been  dull  Indeed  had  we  failed  to  be  moved  by 
this  most  moving  spectacle  in  the  world.  That 
they  had  so  responded  to  the  higher  appeals  only 
confirms  Ruskln's  statement  that  "we  admire  the 
soldier  not  because  he  goes  forth  to  slay  but  to  be 
slain."  The  fact  that  many  of  them  were 
obliged  to  make  a  great  effort  to  bear  themselves 
gallantly  in  the  final  tests  of  "war's  brutalities" 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  their  courage 


138      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

and  sense  of  devotion.     All  this,  of  course,  we 
had  realized  during  our  months  in  Europe. 

After  the  meeting  in  Carnegie  Hall  and  after 
an  interview  with  President  Wilson  in  Washing- 
ton, I  returned  to  Chicago  to  a  public  meeting  ar- 
ranged in  the  Auditorium;  I  was  met  at  the  train 
by  a  committee  of  aldermen  appointed  as  a  result 
of  a  resolution  in  the  City  Council.  There  was  an 
indefinite  feeling  that  the  meeting  at  The  Hague 
might  turn  out  to  be  of  significance,  and  that  in 
such  an  event  its  chairman  should  have  been  hon- 
ored by  her  fellow  citizens.  But  the  bayonet 
story  had  preceded  me  and  every  one  was  filled 
with  great  uneasiness.  To  be  sure,  a  few  war 
correspondents  had  come  to  my  rescue — writing 
of  the  overpowering  smell  of  ether  preceding  cer- 
tain German  attacks;  the  fact  that  English  sol- 
diers knew  when  a  bayonet  charge  was  about  to  be 
ordered  because  rations  of  rum  were  distributed 
along  the  trenches.  Some  people  began  to 
suspect  that  the  story,  exaggerated  and  grotesque 
as  it  had  become,  indicated  not  cowardice  but 
merely  an  added  sensitiveness  which  the  modern 
soldier  was  obliged  to  overcome.  Among  the 
many  letters  on  the  subject  which  filled  my  mail 
for  weeks,  the  bitter  and  abusive  were  from 
civilians  or  from  the  old  men  to  whom  war  ex- 
periences had  become  a  reminiscence,  the  larger 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    139 

number  and  the  most  understanding  ones  came 
from  soldiers  in  active  service. 

Only  once  did  I  try  a  public  explanation.  After 
an  address  in  Chautauqua,  New  York,  in  which  I 
had  not  mentioned  bayonets,  I  tried  to  remake  my 
original  statement  to  a  young  man  of  the  associ- 
ated press  only  to  find  it  once  more  so  garbled  that 
I  gave  up  in  despair,  quite  unmoved  by  the  young 
man's  letter  of  apology  which  followed  hard  upon 
the  published  report  of  his  interview. 

I  will  confess  that  the  mass  psychology  of  the 
situation  interested  me  even  then  and  continued 
to  do  so  until  I  fell  ill  with  a  serious  attack  of 
pleuro-pneumonia,  which  was  the  beginning  of 
three  years  of  semi-invalidism.  During  weeks  of 
feverish  discomfort  I  experienced  a  bald  sense  of 
social  opprobrium  and  wide-spread  misunder- 
standing which  brought  me  very  near  to  self  pity, 
perhaps  the  lowest  pit  into  which  human  nature 
can  sink.  Indeed  the  pacifist  in  war  time,  with 
his  precious  cause  in  the  keeping  of  those  who  con- 
trol the  sources  of  publicity  and  consider  it  a 
patriotic  duty  to  make  all  types  of  peace  propa- 
ganda obnoxious,  constantly  faces  two  dangers. 
Strangely  enough  he  finds  it  possible  to  travel 
from  the  mire  of  self  pity  straight  to  the  barren 
hills  of  self-righteousness  and  to  hate  himself 
equally  in  both  places. 


I40      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  great  war,  as 
the  members  of  our  group  gradually  became  de- 
fined from  the  rest  of  the  community,  each  one 
felt  increasingly  the  sense  of  isolation  which 
rapidly  developed  after  the  United  States  entered 
the  war  into  that  destroying  effect  of  "aloneness," 
if  I  may  so  describe  the  opposite  of  mass  conscious- 
ness. We  never  ceased  to  miss  the  unquestioning 
comradeship  experienced  by  our  fellow  citizens 
during  the  war,  nor  to  feel  curiously  outside  the 
enchantment  given  to  any  human  emotion  when  it 
is  shared  by  millions  of  others.  The  force  of  the 
majority  was  so  overwhelming  that  it  seemed  not 
only  impossible  to  hold  one's  own  against  it,  but 
at  moments  absolutely  unnatural,  and  one  secretly 
yearned  to  participate  in  "the  folly  of  all  man- 
kind." Our  modern  democratic  teaching  has 
brought  us  to  regard  popular  impulses  as  possess- 
ing in  their  general  tendency  a  valuable  capacity 
for  evolutionary  development.  In  the  hours  of 
doubt  and  self-distrust  the  question  again  and 
again  arises,  has  the  individual  or  a  very  small 
group,  the  right  to  stand  out  against  millions  of 
his  fellow  countrymen?  Is  there  not  a  great 
value  in  mass  judgment  and  in  instinctive  mass  en- 
thusiasm, and  even  if  one  were  right  a  thousand 
times  over  in  conviction,  was  he  not  absolutely 
wrong  In  abstaining  from  this  communion  with  his 
fellows?     The  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    141 

old  friends  and  associates  and  the  charge  of  lack 
of  patriotism  was  far  easier  to  bear  than  those 
dark  periods  of  f  aint-heartedness.  We  gradually 
ceased  to  state  our  position  as  we  became  con- 
vinced that  it  served  no  practical  purpose  and, 
worse  than  that,  often  found  that  the  immediate 
result  was  provocative. 

We  could  not,  however,  lose  the  conviction  that 
as  all  other  forms  of  growth  begin  with  a  varia- 
tion from  the  mass,  so  the  moral  changes  in  human 
affairs  may  also  begin  with  a  differing  group  or  in- 
dividual, sometimes  with  the  one  who  at  best  is 
designated  as  a  crank  and  a  freak  and  in  sterner 
moments  is  imprisoned  as  an  atheist  or  a  traitor. 
Just  when  the  differing  individual  becomes  the 
centro-egotist,  the  insane  man,  who  must  be 
thrown  out  by  society  for  Tts  own  protection,  it  is 
impossible  to  state.  The  pacifist  was  constantly 
brought  sharply  up  against  a  genuine  human  trait 
with  its  biological  basis,  a  trait  founded  upon  the 
instinct  to  dislike,  to  distrust  and  finally  to  destroy 
the  individual  who  differs  from  the  mass  in  time 
of  danger.  Regarding  this  trait  as  the  basis  of 
self-preservation  it  becomes  perfectly  natural  for 
the  mass  to  call  such  an  individual  a  traitor  and 
to  insist  that  if  he  is  not  for  the  nation  he  is 
against  it.  To  this  an  estimated  nine  million  peo- 
ple can  bear  witness  who  have  been  burned  as 
witches  and  heretics,  not  by  mobs,  for  of  the  peo- 


142     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

pie  who  have  been  "lynched"  no  record  has  been 
kept,  but  by  order  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil  courts. 

There  were  moments  when  the  pacifist  yielded 
to  the  suggestion  that  keeping  himself  out  of  war, 
refusing  to  take  part  In  its  enthusiasms,  was  but 
pure  quietism,  an  acute  failure  to  adjust  himself  to 
the  moral  world.  Certainly  nothing  was  clearer 
than  that  the  individual  will  was  helpless  and  ir- 
relevant. We  were  constantly  told  by  our  friends 
that  to  stand  aside  from  the  war  mood  of  the 
country  was  to  surrender  all  possibility  of  future 
influence,  that  we  were  committing  intellectual  sui- 
cide, and  would  never  again  be  trusted  as  responsi- 
ble people  or  judicious  advisers.  Who  were  we  to 
differ  with  able  statesmen,  with  men  of  sensitive 
conscience  who  also  absolutely  abhorred  war,  but 
were  convinced  that  this  war  for  the  preservation 
of  democracy  would  make  all  future  wars  impos- 
sible, that  the  priceless  values  of  civilization  which 
were  at  stake  could  at  this  moment  be  saved  only 
by  war?  But  these  very  dogmatic  statements 
spurred  one  to  alarm.  Was  not  war  in  the  in- 
terest of  democracy  for  the  salvation  of  civiliza- 
tion a  contradiction  of  terms,  whoever  said  it  or 
however  often  it  was  repeated? 

Then,  too,  we  were  always  afraid  of  fanaticism, 
of  preferring  a  consistency  of  theory  to  the  con- 
scientious recognition  of  the  social  situation,  of  a 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    143 

failure  to  meet  life  in  the  temper  of  a  practical 
person.  Every  student  of  our  time  had  become 
more  or  less  a  disciple  of  pragmatism  and  its  great 
teachers  in  the  United  States  had  come  out  for  the 
war  and  defended  their  positions  with  skill  and 
philosophic  acumen.  There  were  moments  when 
one  longed  desperately  for  reconciliation  with 
one's  friends  and  fellow  citizens;  in  the  words  of 
Amiel,  "Not  to  remain  at  variance  with  existence 
but  to  reach  that  understanding  of  life  which  en- 
ables us  at  least  to  obtain  forgiveness."  Solitude 
has  always  had  its  demons,  harder  to  withstand 
than  the  snares  of  the  world,  and  the  unnatural 
desert  into  which  the  pacifist  was  summarily  cast 
out  seemed  to  be  peopled  with  them.  We  sorely 
missed  the  contagion  of  mental  activity,  for  we 
are  all  much  more  dependent  upon  our  social  en- 
vironment and  daily  newspaper  than  perhaps  any 
of  us  realize.  We  also  doubtless  encountered,  al- 
though subconsciously,  the  temptations  described 
by  John  Stuart  Mill :  "In  respect  to  the  persons 
and  affairs  of  their  own  day,  men  insensibly  adopt 
the  modes  of  feeling  and  judgment  in  which  they 
can  hope  for  sympathy  from  the  company  they 
keep." 

The  consciousness  of  spiritual  alienation  was 
lost  only  in  moments  of  comradeship  with  the  like 
minded,  which  may  explain  the  tendency  of  the 


144     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

pacifist  in  war  time  to  seek  his  intellectual  kin,  his 
spiritual  friends,  wherever  they  might  be  found 
in  his  own  country  or  abroad. 

It  was  inevitable  that  in  many  respects  the 
peace  cause  should  suffer  in  public  opinion  from 
the  efforts  of  groups  of  people  who,  early  in  the 
war,  were  convinced  that  the  country  as  a  whole 
was  for  peace  and  who  tried  again  and  again  to 
discover  a  method  for  arousing  and  formulating 
the  sentiment  against  war.  I  was  ill  and  out  of 
Chicago  when  the  People's  Council  held  a  national 
convention  there,  which  was  protected  by  the  city 
police  but  threatened  with  dispersion  by  the  state 
troops,  who,  however,  arrived  from  the  capital 
several  hours  after  the  meeting  had  adjourned. 
The  incident  was  most  sensational  and  no  one  was 
more  surprised  than  many  of  the  members  of  the 
People's  Council  who  thus  early  In  the  war  had 
supposed  that  they  were  conducting  a  perfectly 
legitimate  convention.  The  incident  gave  tre- 
mendous "copy"  in  a  city  needing  rationalizing 
rather  than  sensationalizing  at  that  moment. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  shock  and  terror  of  the 
"anarchist  riots"  occurring  in  Chicago  years  ago 
have  left  their  traces  upon  the  nervous  system  of 
the  city  somewhat  as  a  nervous  shock  experienced 
in  youth  will  long  afterwards  determine  the  action 
of  a  mature  man  under  widely  different  circum- 
stances. 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    145 

On  the  whole,  the  New  York  groups  were  much 
more  active  and  throughout  the  war  were  allowed 
much  more  freedom  both  of  assembly  and  press, 
although  later  a  severe  reaction  followed  ex- 
pressed through  the  Lusk  Committee  and  other 
agencies.  Certainly  neither  city  approximated 
the  freedom  of  London  and  nothing  surprised  me 
more  in  19 15  and  again  in  19 19  than  the  freedom 
of  speech  permitted  there. 

We  also  read  with  a  curious  eagerness  the  stead- 
ily increasing  number  of  books  published  from 
time  to  time  during  the  war,  which  brought  a  re- 
newal of  one's  faith  or  at  least  a  touch  of  comfort. 
These  books  broke  through  that  twisting  and  sup- 
pressing of  awkward  truths,  which  was  encour- 
aged and  at  times  even  ordered  by  the  censorship. 
Such  manipulation  of  news  and  motives  was  doubt- 
less necessary  in  the  interest  of  war  propaganda 
if  the  people  were  to  be  kept  In  a  fighting 
mood.  Perhaps  the  most  vivid  books  came  from 
France,  early  from  Romain  Rolland,  later  from 
Barbusse,  although  it  was  interesting  to  see  how 
many  people  took  the  latter's  burning  indictment 
of  war  merely  as  a  further  incitement  against  the 
enemy.  On  the  scientific  side  were  the  frequent 
writings  of  David  Starr  Jordan  and  the  remark- 
able book  of  Nicolai  on  "The  Biology  of  War." 
The  latter  enabled  one,  at  least  in  one's  own  mind, 
to  refute  the  pseudo-scientific  statement  that  war 


146     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

was  valuable  in  securing  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Nicolai  insisted  that  primitive  man  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  a  peaceful  and  social  animal  and 
that  he  developed  his  intelligence  through  the  use 
of  the  tool,  not  through  the  use  of  the  weapon; 
it  was  the  primeval  community  which  made  the 
evolution  of  man  possible,  and  cooperation  among 
men  is  older  and  more  primitive  than  mass  com- 
bat which  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  much  later  prop- 
erty instinct.  No  other  species  save  ants,  who  also 
possess  property,  fights  in  masses  against  other 
masses  of  its  own  kind.  War  is  in  fact  not  a 
natural  process  and  not  a  struggle  for  existence 
in  the  evolutionary  sense.  He  illustrated  the 
evolutionary  survival  of  the  fittest  by  two  tigers 
inhabiting  the  same  jungle  or  feeding  ground,  the 
one  who  has  the  greater  skill  and  strength  as  a 
hunter  survives  and  the  other  starves,  but  the 
strong  one  does  not  go  out  to  kill  the  weak 
one,  as  the  war  propagandist  implied;  or  by  two 
varieties  of  mice  living  in  the  same  field  or  barn; 
In  the  biological  struggle,  the  variety  which  grows 
a  thicker  coat  survives  the  winter  while  the  other 
variety  freezes  to  extinction,  but  if  one  variety 
of  mice  should  go  forth  to  kill  the  other,  it  would 
be  absolutely  abnormal  and  quite  outside  the  evolu- 
tionary survival  which  is  based  on  the  adjustment 
of  the  organism  to  its  environment.  George  Nas- 
myth's  book  on  Darwinism  and  the  Social  Order 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    147 

was  another  clear  statement  of  the  mental  con- 
fusion responsible  for  the  Insistence  that  even  a 
biological  progress  Is  secured  through  war.  Mr. 
Brailsford  wrote  constantly  on  the  economic  re- 
sults of  the  war  and  we  got  much  comfort 
from  John  Hobson's  "Toward  International  Gov- 
ernment," which  gave  an  authoritative  account 
of  the  enormous  amount  of  human  activity  actu- 
ally carried  on  through  international  organiza- 
tions of  all  sorts,  many  of  them  under  govern- 
mental control.  Lowes  Dickenson's  books,  espe- 
cially the  spirited  challenge  in  "The  Choice  Before 
Us,"  left  his  readers  with  the  distinct  Impression 
that  "war  is  not  inevitable  but  proceeds  from  defi- 
nite and  removable  causes."  From  every  such 
book  the  pacifist  was  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
none  save  those  Interested  in  the  realization  of 
an  Idea  are  In  a  position  to  bring  it  about  and 
that  if  one  found  himself  the  unhappy  possessor 
of  an  unpopular  conviction,  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  to  think  as  clearly  as  he  was  able  and  be 
in  a  position  to  serve  his  country  as  soon  as  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  do  so. 

But  with  or  without  the  help  of  good  books 
a  hideous  sensitiveness  remained,  for  the  pacifist, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  has  developed  a  high  de- 
gree of  suggestibility,  sharing  that  consciousness 
of  the  feelings,  the  opinions  and  the  customs  of 
his  own  social  group  which  is  said  to  be  an  inheri- 


148      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

tance  from  an  almost  pre-human  past.  An  in- 
stinct which  once  enabled  the  man-pack  to  survive 
when  it  was  a  question  of  keeping  together  or  of 
perishing  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  is  perhaps  not 
underdeveloped  in  any  of  us.  There  is  a  distinct 
physical  as  well  as  moral  strain  when  this  instinct 
is  steadily  suppressed  or  at  least  ignored. 

The  large  number  of  deaths  among  the  older 
pacifists  in  all  the  warring  nations  can  probably 
be  traced  in  some  measure  to  the  peculiar  strain 
which  such  maladjustment  implies.  More  than 
the  normal  amount  of  nervous  energy  must  be 
consumed  in  holding  one's  own  in  a  hostile  world. 
These  older  men,  Kier  Hardie  and  Lord  Court- 
ney in  England,  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones,  Rauchen- 
busch,  Washington  Gladden  in  the  United  States, 
Lammasch  and  Fried  in  Austria,  had  been  hon- 
ored by  their  fellow  citizens  because  of  marked 
ability  to  interpret  and  understand  them.  Sud- 
denly to  jfind  every  public  utterance  wilfully  mis- 
construed, every  attempt  at  normal  relationship 
repudiated,  must  react  in  a  baffled  suppression 
which  is  health-destroying  even  if  we  do  not  accept 
the  mechanistic  explanation  of  the  human  system. 
Certainly  by  the  end  of  the  war  we  were  able  to 
understand,  although  our  group  certainly  did  not 
endorse  the  statement  of  Cobden,  one  of  the  most 
convinced  of  all  internationalists:  "I  made  up  my 
mind  during  the  Crimean  War  that  if  ever  I  lived 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    149 

in  the  time  of  another  great  war  of  a  similar  kind 
between  England  and  another  power,  I  would  not 
as  a  public  man  open  my  mouth  on  the  subject,  so 
convinced  am  I  that  appeals  to  reason,  conscience 
or  interest  have  no  force  whatever  on  parties  en- 
gaged in  war,  and  that  exhaustion  on  one  or  both 
sides  can  alone  bring  a  contest  of  physical  force 
to  an  end." 

On  the  other  hand  there  were  many  times  when 
we  stubbornly  asked  ourselves,  what  after  all,  has 
maintained  the  human  race  on  this  old  globe  de- 
spite all  the  calamities  of  nature  and  all  the  tragic 
failings  of  mankind,  if  not  faith  in  new  possibil- 
ities, and  courage  to  advocate  them.  Doubtless 
many  times  these  new  possibilities  were  declared 
by  a  man  who,  quite  unconscious  of  courage,  bore 
the  "sense  of  being  an  exile,  a  condemned  crimi- 
nal, a  fugitive  from  mankind."  Did  every  one 
so  feel  who,  in  order  to  travel  on  his  own  proper 
path  had  been  obliged  to  leave  the  traditional 
highway?  The  pacifist,  during  the  period  of  the 
war  could  answer  none  of  these  questions  but  he 
was  sick  at  heart  from  causes  which  to  him  were 
hidden  and  impossible  to  analyze.  He  was  at 
times  devoured  by  a  veritable  dissatisfaction  with 
life.  Was  he  thus  bearing  his  share  of  blood- 
guiltiness,  the  morbid  sense  of  contradiction  and 
inexplicable  suicide  which  modern  war  implies? 
We  certainly  had  none  of  the  internal  contentment 


I50      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

of  the  doctrinnalre,  the  ineffable  solace  of  the 
self-righteous  which  was  imputed  to  us.  No  one 
knew  better  than  we  how  feeble  and  futile  we  were 
against  the  impregnable  weight  of  public  opinion, 
the  appalling  imperviousness,  the  coagulation  of 
motives,  the  universal  confusion  of  a  world  at 
war.  There  was  scant  solace  to  be  found  in  this 
type  of  statement:  "The  worth  of  every  convic- 
tion consists  precisely  in  the  steadfastness  with 
which  it  is  held,"  perhaps  because  we  suffered 
from  the  fact  that  we  were  no  longer  living  in  a 
period  of  dogma  and  were  therefore  in  no  posi- 
tion to  announce  our  sense  of  security !  We  were 
well  aware  that  the  modern  liberal  having  come 
to  conceive  truth  of  a  kind  which  must  vindicate 
itself  in  practice,  finds  it  hard  to  hold  even  a  sin- 
cere and  mature  opinion  which  from  the  very  na- 
ture of  things  can  have  no  justification  in  works. 
The  pacifist  in  war  time  is  literally  starved  of  any 
gratification  of  that  natural  desire  to  have  his  own 
decisions  justified  by  his  fellows. 

That,  perhaps,  was  the  crux  of  the  situation. 
We  slowly  became  aware  that  our  affirmation  was 
regarded  as  pure  dogma.  We  were  thrust  into 
the  position  of  the  doctrinnalre,  and  although,  had 
we  been  permitted,  we  might  have  cited  both  his- 
toric and  scientific  tests  of  our  so-called  doctrine 
of  Peace,  for  the  moment  any  sanction  even  by 
way  of  illustration  was  impossible. 


PERSONAL  REACTIONS  DURING  WAR    151 

It  therefore  came  about  that  ability  to  hold  out 
against  mass  suggestion,  to  honestly  differ  from 
the  convictions  and  enthusiasms  of  one's  best 
friends  did  in  moments  of  crisis  come  to  depend 
upon  the  categorical  belief  that  a  man's  primary 
allegiance  is  to  his  vision  of  the  truth  and  that  he 
is  under  obligation  to  affirm  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE 

In  line  with  a  resolution  passed  at  our  Hague 
Congress  in  19 15,  "that  our  next  Congress  should 
be  held  at  the  time  and  place  of  the  official  Peace 
Conference,"  each  of  the  national  sections  had  ap- 
pointed a  committee  of  five,  who  were  to  start  for 
the  place  of  the  Peace  Conference  as  soon  as  the 
arrangements  were  announced.  They  were  then 
to  cable  back  to  the  selected  twenty  delegates  and 
ten  alternates  in  each  country,  who  were  to  follow 
as  quickly  as  preparations  could  be  made.  It  was 
assumed  in  19 15,  not  only  by  ourselves,  but  largely 
by  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the  Peace  Conference 
would  be  held  in  a  neutral  country,  probably  at 
The  Hague,  and  that  both  sides  would  be  repre- 
sented there. 

In  planning  a  congress  of  women  it  was  borne 
in  mind  that  the  official  Conference  at  the  end 
of  the  war  determining  the  terms  of  peace  would 
be  largely  composed  of  diplomats  who  are  neces- 
sarily bound  by  the  traditional  conventions  which 
have  so  long  dominated  all  intercourse  between 
nations.     Because  in  every  country  such  men  are 

152 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     153 

seldom  representative  of  modern  social  thought 
and  the  least  responsive  to  changing  ideas,  it  was 
considered  supremely  important  that  when  the 
conference  of  diplomats  should  come  together, 
other  groups  should  convene  in  order  to  urge  the 
importance  of  certain  interests  which  have  hith- 
erto been  inarticulate  in  international  affairs.  This 
need  had  been  recognized  not  only  by  the  women 
but  by  international  organizations  of  labor,  by 
the  Zionists  and  similar  groups,  who  were  also 
planning  to  hold  Congresses  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  place  as  the  official  Peace  Con- 
ference After  the  War. 

The  tremendous  movement  for  a  League  of  Na- 
tions, the  gathering  together  of  experts  and  schol- 
ars as  aids  to  the  official  Peace  Commissioners  had 
of  course  all  developed  after  our  Congress  at 
The  Hague  in  19 15,  but  all  the  more  did  we  hope 
for  a  great  spiritual  awakening  in  international 
affairs.  We  recalled  that  it  was  at  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  in  18 15  after  the  Napoleonic  wars  that  the 
nations  represented  there,  as  part  of  their  over- 
whelming demand  for  a  more  highly  moralized 
future,  insisted  that  the  diplomats  should  make 
international  provision  for  abolishing  the  slave 
trade. 

When  it  was  announced  that  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence would  assemble  in  Paris  all  the  plans  for  our 
Woman's  Congress  fell  through.     It  was  neces- 


154     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

sary,  of  course,  for  us  to  meet  in  a  neutral  country 
as  naturally  the  women  from  the  Central  Powers 
could  not  go  to  France.  This  inevitable  change 
of  place  involved  much  cabling  and  delay,  and 
there  were  also  some  difficulties  in  regard  to  pass- 
ports even  for  neutral  Switzerland. 

The  group  of  American  delegates  arriving  In 
Paris  at  Easter,  19 19  found  that  the  English  pass- 
ports had  been  delayed  and  that  the  brilliant  presi- 
dent of  our  French  Section  and  her  fellow  officers 
had  been  refused  theirs.  After  various  meetings 
in  Paris,  at  which  the  French,  English  and  Ameri- 
can sections  were  well  represented,  the  Congress 
wasHnally  arranged  for  May  12,  at  Zurich.  Curi- 
ously enough,  after  our  many  delays,  we  at  last 
met  in  the  very  week  when  the  Peace  Conference 
in  Paris  had  become  enlarged  beyond  the  member- 
ship of  the  Allied  and  neutral  nations  by  receiving 
the  delegates  from  the  Central  Powers,  and  when 
in  a  sense  the  official  Peace  Conference  as  such 
had  formally  begun.  Our  fortnight  of  delay  in 
Paris  was  spent  in  conference  with  our  French 
colleagues,  in  interviews  with  various  persons  con- 
nected both  with  the  Peace  Conference  and  the 
Food  Administration,  and  by  some  of  us  in  a  five- 
days'  visit  to  the  devastated  regions,  which  was 
made  by  automobile,  kindly  arranged  for  us  by  the 
American  Red  Cross. 

Day  after   day  as  rain,   snow   and  sleet   fell 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE    155 

steadily  from  a  leaden  sky,  we  drove  through 
lands  laid  waste  and  still  encumbered  by  mounds 
of  munitions,  exploded  shells,  broken  down  tanks 
and  incredibly  huge  tangles  of  rusty  barbed  wire. 
The  ground  was  furrowed  in  all  directions  by 
trenches  and  shell  holes,  we  passed  through  ruined 
towns  and  villages  in  which  no  house  had  been 
left  standing,  although  at  times  a  grey  head  would 
emerge  from  a  cellar  which  had  been  rudely 
roofed  with  bits  of  corrugated  iron.  It  was 
always  the  old  people  who  had  come  back  first, 
for  they  least  of  all  could  brook  the  life  of  refu- 
gees. There  had  not  yet  been  time  to  gather  the 
dead  into  cemeteries,  but  at  Vimy  Ridge  colored 
troops  from  the  United  States  were  digging  rows 
of  graves  for  the  bodies  being  drawn  toward  them 
in  huge  trucks.  In  the  Argonne  we  still  saw 
clusters  of  wooden  crosses  surmounting  the  heaps 
of  clay,  each  cross  with  its  metal  tag  for  inscrip- 
tion. 

I  had  a  personal  interest  in  these  graves  for  my 
oldest  nephew  had  fallen  in  the  Argonne.  We 
searched  for  his  grave  through  one  long  afternoon 
but,  owing  to  the  incompleteness  of  our  map  and 
the  fact  that  there  was  no  living  soul  to  consult 
in  the  village  nearest  the  farm  on  which  the  battle 
had  been  fought,  we  failed  to  find  it.  We  met; 
other  people  on  the  same  errand,  one  a  French 
Cure  who  knew  the  ground  with  a  sad  intimacy. 


156     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

We  spent  the  following  night  at  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  reconstruction  work  of  the  Friends' 
Service  Committee  in  devastated  France,  where 
the  work  of  both  the  English  and  American  units 
was  being  supervised  by  Edward  Harvey,  who 
had  been  Canon  Barnett's  successor  as  Warden, 
of  Toynbee  Hall.  After  an  evening  of  talk  to 
which  the  young  men  had  come  in  from  all  the  out- 
lying villages  where  they  were  constructing  tem- 
porary houses  for  the  refugees  who  had  returned, 
or  plowing  the  fields  for  those  who  had  not  yet 
arrived,  or  supplying  necessities  to  those  who  had 
come  back  too  ill  to  begin  their  regular  course  of 
living,  four  of  us  who  had  long  been  identified 
with  settlements  sat  by  a  small  open  fire  and  tried 
to  disentangle  the  moral  situation  into  which  the 
war  had  thrown  those  who  could  not  consider  it 
legitimate,  yet  felt  acutely  the  call  to  service  on  be- 
half of  its  victims  and  the  full  measure  of  pity 
for  the  colossal  devastation  and  helpless  misery. 
In  the  morning  one  of  the  Friends  went  with  us 
to  the  region  we  had  searched  the  day  before,  and 
although  we  early  abandoned  the  motor  in  the 
shell  wrecked  road,  he  finally  found  the  farm  and 
grave  we  sought,  the  third  in  one  of  three  long 
rows. 

On  May  6,  19 15,  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Woman's  International  Committee  for  Per- 
manent Peace  met  in  Zurich  to  prepare  the  agenda 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     157 

of  the  Congress.  The  members  represented 
groups  of  women  who,  living  in  fourteen  differ- 
ent nations  of  the  neutral,  the  Entente  and  the 
Central  Powers,  had  found  themselves  opposed 
to  the  full  tide  of  public  opinion  throughout  the 
war.  That  a  curious  fellowship  had  developed 
between  these  widely  scattered  groups  was  re- 
vealed from  time  to  time  when  committee  mem- 
bers recounted,  merely  by  way  of  explanation  in 
regard  to  incomplete  records  or  absent  delegates, 
such  similar  experiences  with  governmental  espion- 
age as  to  demonstrate  without  doubt  that  war 
methods  are  identical  in  all  nations.  Without  ex- 
planation or  asseveration  we  also  discovered  how 
like-minded  we  were  when  resolutions  on  the  same 
subject,  coming  in  from  one  country  after  another, 
were  so  similar  in  intent  that  the  five  sub-com- 
mittees who  sorted  and  combined  and  translated 
the  material  were  often  perplexed  to  decide  which 
resolution  most  clearly  expressed  that  which  was 
common  to  them  all,  which  one  best  reflected  some- 
thing of  what  we  had  learned  and  hoped  through 
the  poignant  suffering  of  the  past  five  years.  In 
one  sense  these  resolutions  gave  a  cross-cut  section, 
— although  in  a  business-like  form,  as  it  were — of 
the  hopes  maturing  in  many  countries,  including 
those  so  lately  at  war,  for  "permanent  arrange- 
ments that  justice  shall  be  rendered  and  peace 
maintained."    We  knew  that  there  would  be  diffi- 


158      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

culties  in  holding  an  international  Congress  so 
soon  after  the  war,  but  in  all  humility  of  spirit  we 
claimed  that  we  essayed  the  task  free  from  any 
rancorous  memories,  from  wilful  misunderstand- 
ing or  distrust  of  so-called  enemies. 

Therefore  in  reply  to  the  often  repeated  predic- 
tion that  the  Congress  was  premature  and  that 
the  attempt  would  end  in  disaster,  which  was  made 
not  only  in  the  United  States  but  still  oftener  by 
American  women  in  Paris  who  were  sensitive  to 
the  hostility  still  prevailing  during  the  peace  nego- 
tiations, we  could  only  state  our  conviction  that 
the  women  eligible  to  membership  in  the  Congress 
had  suffered  too  much  during  the  war,  had  been 
too  close  to  the  clarifying  spirit  of  reality  to  in- 
dulge in  any  sentimental  or  unconsidered  state- 
ments. 

Yet  inevitably  we  felt  a  certain  restraint — self- 
consciousness  would  perhaps  be  a  better  word — 
when  we  considered  seeing  the  "alien  enemy"  face 
to  face.  I  imagine  many  of  the  experiences  were 
similar  to  my  own  when  walking  the  streets  of 
Zurich  the  day  we  arrived  I  turned  a  corner  and 
suddenly  met  one  of  the  Austrian  women  who  had 
been  a  delegate  to  The  Hague  Congress  and  had 
afterwards  shown  us  every  courtesy  in  Vienna 
when  we  presented  our  Neutral  Conference  plan. 
She  was  so  shrunken  and  changed  that  I  had  much 
difficulty   in   identifying   her  with   the   beautiful 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     159 

woman  I  had  seen  three  years  before.  She  was 
not  only  emaciated  as  by  a  wasting  illness,  look- 
ing as  if  she  needed  immediate  hospital  care — she 
did  in  fact  die  three  months  after  her  return  to 
Vienna — but  her  face  and  artist's  hands  were  cov- 
ered with  rough  red  blotches  due  to  the  long  use 
of  soap  substitutes,  giving  her  a  cruelly  scalded 
appearance.  My  first  reaction  was  one  of  over- 
whelming pity  and  alarm  as  I  suddenly  discovered 
my  friend  standing  at  the  very  gate  of  death.  This 
was  quickly  followed  by  the  same  sort  of  indigna- 
tion I  had  first  felt  in  the  presence  of  the  starving 
children  at  Lille.  What  were  we  all  about  that 
such  things  were  allowed  to  happen  in  a  so-called 
civilized  world?  Certainly  all  extraneous  differ- 
ences fell  from  us  as  we  stood  together  in  the 
spring  sunshine  and  spoke  of  the  coming  Congress 
which,  feeble  as  it  was,  yet  gave  a  demonstration 
that  a  few  women  were  to  be  found  in  each  coun- 
try who  could  not  brook  that  such  a  state  of  af- 
fairs should  go  unchallenged.  At  the  evening 
meeting  preceding  the  opening  of  the  Congress 
this  dying  woman  told  us  that  many  Austrian 
women  had  resented  not  so  much  the  starvation 
itself  as  the  fact  that  day  after  day  they  had  been 
obliged  to  keep  their  minds  steadily  on  the  sub- 
ject of  procuring  food  until  all  other  objects  for 
living  were  absolutely  excluded.  To  the  horror 
and  anxieties  of  war  had  been  added  the  sordid- 


i6o     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ness  of  sheer  animal  hunger  with  its  inhibitions. 
She  spoke  in  the  white  marble  hall  of  the  Univers- 
ity of  Zurich.  The  same  meeting  was  addressed 
by  a  German  delegate  and  by  an  American  who 
had  both  come  back  to  the  University  which  had 
given  them  doctor's  degrees.  What  a  welcome 
they  received  from  the  Swiss  people  1  We  had 
almost  forgotten  what  it  was  like  to  be  in  a  neu- 
tral country  where  it  entailed  no  odium  to  be  a 
pacifist. 

After  the  formal  opening  of  the  Congress  had 
been  disposed  of,  the  first  resolution  proposed 
was  on  the  famine  and  blockade.  It  was  most 
eloquently  presented  by  Mrs.  Pethwick  Lawrence 
of  England  and  went  through  without  a  dissenting 
vote: 

"This  International  Congress  of  Women 
regards  the  famine,  pestilence  and  unemploy- 
ment extending  throughout  the  great  tracts 
of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe  and  into  Asia 
as  a  disgrace  to  civilization. 

"It  therefore  urges  the  Governments  of 
all  the  Powers  assembled  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference immediately  to  develop  the  inter- 
allied organizations  formed  for  purposes  of 
war  into  an  international  organization  for 
purposes  of  peace,  so  that  the  resources  of  the 
world — food,  raw  materials,  finance,  trans- 
port— shall  be  made  available  for  the  relief 
of  the  peoples  of  all  countries  from  famine 
and  pestilence. 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     i6i 

"To  this  end  It  urges  that  immediate  ac- 
tion be  taken : 

"i.  To  raise  the  blockade;  and 

"2.  If  there  is  insufficiency  of  food  or 
transport; 

"a.  To  prohibit  the  use  of  transport  from 
one  country  to  another  for  the  conveyance 
of  luxuries  until  the  necessaries  of  life  are 
supplied  to  all  peoples; 

"b.  To  ration  the  people  of  every  country 
so  that  the  starving  may  be  fed. 

"The  Congress  believes  that  only  immedi- 
ate international  action  on  these  lines  can 
save  humanity  and  bring  about  the  perma- 
nent reconciliation  and  union  of  the  peoples." 

The  resolution  in  full  was  telegraphed  to  Paris 
and  we  received  a  prompt  reply  from  President 
Wilson.  The  public  reception  of  this  telegram 
was  one  of  the  most  striking  moments  of  the  Con- 
gress and  revealed  once  more  the  reverence  with 
which  all  Europe  regarded  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  As  the  university  hall  was  too 
small  for  the  increasing  attendance,  we  held  our 
last  evening  meetings  in  the  largest  church  in  the 
city.  As  I  stood  in  the  old-fashioned  high  pulpit 
to  announce  the  fact  that  a  telegram  had  been  re- 
ceived from  President  Wilson,  there  fell  a  hush, 
a  sense  of  tension  on  the  great  audience  that  is 
difficult  to  describe.     It  was  as  If  out  of  the  con- 


1 62      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

fusion  and  misery  of  Europe  one  authoritative 
voice  was  about  to  be  heard.  Although  the  tele- 
gram itself  but  expressed  sympathy  with  our 
famine  resolution,  and  regret  that  the  Paris  Con- 
ference could  not  act  upon  its  suggestions,  there 
arose  from  the  audience  a  sigh  of  religious  resig- 
nation, as  if  a  good  man  were  doing  his  best  and 
in  the  end  must  succeed. 

As  the  Congress  had  received  through  our  press 
correspondent  an  advance  copy  of  the  treaty  and 
was  in  actual  session  the  very  day  the  treaty  was 
made  public,  we  were  naturally  in  a  position  to  be 
the  very  first  public  body  to  discuss  its  terms. 
We  certainly  spoke  out  unequivocally  in  a  series 
of  resolutions,  beginning  as  follows: 

"This  International  Congress  of  Women 
expresses  its  deep  regret  that  the  Terms  of 
Peace  proposed  at  Versailles  should  so  seri- 
ously violate  the  principles  upon  which  alone 
a  just  and  lasting  peace  can  be  secured,  and 
which  the  democracies  of  the  world  had  come 
to  accept." 

"By  guaranteeing  the  fruits  of  the  secret 
treaties  to  the  conquerors,  the  Terms  of 
Peace  tacitly  sanction  secret  diplomacy,  deny 
the  principles  of  self-determination,  recog- 
nize the  right  of  the  victors  to  the  spoils  of 
war,  and  create  all  over  Europe  discords  and 
animosities,  which  can  only  lead  to  future 
wars. 

"By  the  demand  for  the  disarmament  of 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE    163 

one  set  of  belligerents  only,  the  principle  of 
justice  is  violated  and  the  rule  of  force  con- 
tinued. 

"By  the  financial  and  economic  proposals 
a  hundred  million  people  of  this  generation 
in  the  heart  of  Europe  are  condemned  to 
poverty,  disease  and  despair  which  must  re- 
sult in  the  spread  of  hatred  and  anarchy 
within  each  nation. 

"With  a  deep  sense  of  responsibility  this 
Congress  strongly  urges  the  Allied  and  As- 
sociated Governments  to  accept  such  amend- 
ments of  the  Terms,  as  shall  bring  the  peace 
into  harmony  with  those  principles  first  enu- 
merated by  President  Wilson  upon  the  faith- 
ful carrying  out  of  which  the  honor  of  the 
Allied  peoples  depends." 

It  was  creditable  to  the  patience  of  the  peace 
makers  in  Paris  that  they  later  received  our  dele- 
gation and  allowed  us  to  place  the  various  resolu- 
tions in  their  hands,  but  we  inevitably  encountered 
much  bitter  criticism  from  the  Allied  press.  Only 
slowly  did  public  opinion  reach  a  point  of  view 
similar  to  ours :  Keynes'  epoch-making  book  was 
not  published  until  a  year  later,  but  so  widely  was 
his  position  ratified  that  on  the  second  celebration 
of  Armistice  day  in  Kingsbury  House  In  London  at 
a  meeting  of  ex-soldlers  and  sailors,  one  of  the  lat- 
ter who  had  been  sorely  wounded,  spoke  as  fol- 
lows :  "For  every  man  who  a  year  ago  knew  and 
said  that  the  Peace  Treaty  was  immoral  in  con- 


i64     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ception  and  would  be  disastrous,  there  are  thou- 
sands who  say  it  now." 

There  was  much  discussion  at  the  Zurich  Con- 
gress on  the  League  of  Nations;  the  first  commit- 
tee made  a  majority  and  minority  report,  another 
committee  reconciled  them  and  resolutions  were 
finally  passed  but  the  Zurich  Congress  took  no 
definite  position  for  or  against  the  League  of  Na- 
tions. As  the  formal  organization  of  the  League 
was  open  to  change  by  the  Peace  Conference  still 
sitting,  a  number  of  careful  suggestions  were  for- 
mulated and  sent  to  Paris  by  a  special  committee 
from  the  Congress.  Two  of  the  English  members 
discussed  them  with  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  I  saw 
Colonel  House  several  times,  our  committee 
through  the  efforts  of  an  Italian  member  was  re- 
ceived by  Signor  Orlando  and  we  also  had  a  hear- 
ing at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  with  the  French  minister 
of  foreign  affairs,  and  with  the  delegates  from 
other  countries.  In  Paris  at  that  time  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  smaller  nations  were  already  ex- 
pressing their  disappointment  In  the  League  but 
its  proponents  were  elated  over  its  adoption  and 
hopeful  for  the  future.  They  all  received  our 
resolutions  politely  and  sometimes  discussed  them 
at  length,  but  only  a  few  of  the  journalists  and  "ex- 
perts" were  enthusiastic  about  them. 

Throughout  the  meetings  of  the  Zurich  Con- 
gress the  delegates,  secure  In  their  sense  of  good 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     165 

will  and  mutual  understanding,  spoke  freely  not 
only  of  their  experiences  during  the  trial  of  war, 
but  also  of  the  methods  which  they  were  advocat- 
ing for  the  difficult  period  of  social  and  industrial 
re-adjustment  following  the  war.  Some  of  our 
delegates  represented  nations  in  which  revolutions 
with  and  without  bloodshed  had  already  taken 
place.  The  members  of  our  organization  had 
stood  against  the  use  of  armed  force  in  such  do- 
mestic crises  as  definitely  as  they  had  protested 
against  its  use  in  international  affairs.  The  paci- 
fists had  already  played  this  role  in  the  revolu- 
tions in  Bavaria,  in  Austria,  in  Hungary.  Having 
so  soon  come  together  under  the  shadow  of  the 
great  war  itself,  we  had  an  opportunity  to  hear 
early  of  the  courageous  and  intelligent  action  tak- 
en by  our  own  groups  in  the  widespread  war  after 
the  war. 

The  Congress  ending  with  a  banquet  given  by 
the  town  oflicials,  was  attended  by  delegates  from 
fifteen  different  countries,  many  of  whom  had 
come  under  great  difficulties.  Despite  sharp  dif- 
ferences as  to  terms  in  the  Treaty,  the  meetings 
were  absolutely  harmonious  and  many  delegates 
confessed  to  each  other  that  they  felt  as  if  they 
were  passing  through  a  rare  spiritual  experience. 
In  addition  to  a  long  list  of  resolutions  on  interna- 
tional affairs,  a  woman's  charter  and  an  education 
program  were  drawn  up.     The  name  of  the  or- 


i66     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ganization  was  changed  to  "Woman's  Interna- 
tional League  for  Peace  and  Freedom"  and  Ge- 
neva, as  the  seat  of  the  League  of  Nations,  was 
made  the  headquarters.  Emily  Balch,  from  the 
United  States,  a  professor  of  economics  in  Welles- 
ley  College  became  secretary,  agreeing  to  remain 
in  Europe  for  the  following  two  years. 

On  our  return  to  Paris  there  were  many  symp- 
toms of  the  malaise  and  confusion  for  which  the 
peace  terms  were  held  responsible  although  it 
would  be  difficult  to  say  how  much  of  it  was  the 
inevitable  aftermath  of  war.  In  the  midst  of  it 
all  only  the  feeding  of  the  hungry  seemed  to  offer 
the  tonic  of  beneficent  activity.  During  our  stop 
at  Paris  in  May  we  had  talked  with  Dr.  Nansen, 
who  was  keen  on  the  prospect  of  entering  Russia 
for  the  sake  of  feeding  the  women  and  children, 
but  upon  our  return  we  found  that  the  Nansen 
plan  had  been  indefinitely  postponed  in  spite  of 
the  popular  reports  that  thousands  of  people  in 
the  aftermath  of  war  were  starving  in  the  indus- 
trial centers  of  Russia.  Mr.  Hoover's  office 
seemed  to  be  the  one  reasonable  spot  in  the  midst 
of  the  widespread  confusion;  the  great  maps  upon 
the  wall  recorded  the  available  food  resources  and 
indicated  fleets  of  ships  carrying  whea^  from 
Australia  to  Finland  or  corn  from  the  port  of  New 
York  to  Fiume.  And  yet  even  at  that  moment  the 
food  blockade,  hitherto  regarded  as  a  war  meas- 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     167 

ure,  was  being  applied  both  to  Hungary  and  Rus- 
sia as  pressure  against  their  political  arrange- 
ments, foreboding  sinister  possibilities.  The  Zu- 
rich Congress  had  made  a  first  protest  against  this 
unfair  use  of  the  newly  formulated  knowledge  of 
the  world's  food  supply  and  of  a  centralized  meth- 
od for  its  distribution.  There  was  a  soviet  regime 
in  Hungary  during  our  meeting  in  Zurich.  Of 
our  two  delegates  from  Hungary,  one  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  it  and  one  was  not,  but  they  both  felt 
hotly  against  the  blockade  which  had  been  insti- 
tuted against  Hungary  as  an  attempt  to  settle  the 
question  of  the  form  of  government  through  the 
starvation  of  the  people. 

On  our  return  to  Paris  after  the  Zurich  Con- 
gress, Dr.  Hamilton  and  I  accepted  an  invitation 
from  the  American  Friends'  Service  Committee 
to  go  into  Germany.  In  explanation  of  our  jour- 
ney it  may  be  well  to  quote  from  a  "minute" 
passed  at  a  meeting  held  in  Devonshire  House, 
London,  the  central  office  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  July  4th,  19 19:  "We  are  thankful  to 
learn  that  certain  members  of  the  Religious  So- 
ciety of  Friends  are  now  proceeding  to  Germany 
under  a  deep  sense  of  the  need  which  exists  for 
mutual  friendly  intercourse  and  fellowship  be- 
tween those  who  all  belong  to  the  same  great  hu- 
man family  and  who  have  been  separated  during 
these  sad  years  of  war. 


i68      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

"Our  friends  are  traveling  on  behalf  of  the 
Committee  which  has  under  its  care  the  arrange- 
ments for  sending  'Gifts  of  Love'  to  Germany, 
in  the  form  of  food,  clothes  and  other  necessaries, 
— a  work  that  is  shared  in  by  many  other  persons 
not  associated  with  Friends  in  membership." 

The  four  English  members  of  the  Committee' 
traveled  through  the  occupied  region,  entered  Ger- 
many via  Cologne,  and  reached  Berlin  July  6th; 
the  three  American  members  who  traveled  through 
Holland  and  crossed  the  border  on  the  first  civ- 
ilian passports  issued  there  since  the  signing  of 
peace,  arrived  in  Berlin  July  7th.  Dr.  Aletta 
Jacobs,  who  had  been  asked  as  a  neutral  to  make 
observations  on  health  conditions  in  Germany,  was  , 
the  fourth  member  of  the  second  party.  Dr.  .if 
Elizabeth  Rotten,  of  Berlin,  who  had  been  acting 
as  the  representative  in  Germany  of  the  work  of 
the  English  Friends  and  was  also  head  of  the 
Educational  Committee  of  the  Germany  Asso- 
ciation for  the  Promotion  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, was  naturally  our  guide  and  advisor. 

We  were  received  everywhere  in  a  fine  spirit  ti 
of  courtesy.     Doctors,  nurses  and  city  officials, , 
who  were  working  against  tuberculosis,  to  keep 
children  healthy,  to  prevent  youthful  crime  and 
foster  education,  had  long  passed  the  mood  of 
bitterness.    What  they  were  facing  was  the  ship-i 
wreck  of  a  nation  and  they  had  no  time  for  resent- ij 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE    169 

merits.  They  realized  that  if  help  did  not  come 
quickly  and  abundantly,  the  coming  generation  in 
Germany  was  largely  doomed  to  early  death  or, 
at  best,  to  a  handicapped  life. 

We  had,  of  course,  seen  something  of  the  wide- 
spread European  starvation  before  we  went  into 
Germany;  our  first  view  in  Europe  of  starved  chil- 
dren was  in  the  city  of  Lille  in  Northern  France, 
where  the  school  children  were  being  examined 
for  tuberculosis.  We  had  already  been  told  that 
forty  per  cent  of  the  children  of  school  age  in 
Lille  had  open  tuberculosis  and  that  the  remaining 
sixty  per  cent  were  practically  all  suspects.  As  we 
entered  the  door  of  a  large  school  room,  we  saw 
at  the  other  end  of  the  room  a  row  of  little  boys, 
from  six  to  ten  years  of  age,  passing  slowly  in 
front  of  the  examining  physician.  The  children 
were  stripped  to  the  waist  and  our  first  impres- 
sion was  of  a  line  of  moving  skeletons;  their  little 
shoulder  blades  stuck  straight  out,  the  vertebrae 
were  all  perfectly  distinct  as  were  their  ribs,  and 
their  bony  arms  hung  limply  at  their  sides.  To 
add  to  the  gruesome  effect  not  a  sound  was  to  be 
heard,  for  the  French  physician  had  lost  his  voice 
as  a  result  of  shell  shock  during  the  first  bombard- 
ment of  Lille.  He  therefore  whispered  his  in- 
structions to  the  children  as  he  applied  his  stetho- 
scope and  the  children,  thinking  it  was  some  sort 
of  game,  all  whispered  back  to  him.     It  was  in- 


I70     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

credibly  pathetic  and  unreal  and  we  could  but  ac- 
cept the  doctor's  grave  statement  that  only  by 
a  system  of  careful  superfeeding,  could  any  of 
these  boys  grow  into  normal  men.  We  had  also 
seen  starved  children  in  Switzerland:  six  hundred 
Viennese  children  arriving  in  Zurich  to  be  guests 
in  private  households.  As  they  stood  upon  the 
station  platforms  without  any  of  the  bustle  and 
chatter  naturally  associated  with  a  large  number 
of  children,  we  had  again  that  painful  impression 
of  listlessness  as  of  a  mortal  illness;  we  saw  the 
winged  shoulder  blades  standing  out  through  their 
meagre  clothing,  the  little  thin  legs  which  scarcely 
supported  the  emaciated  bodies.  The  committee 
of  Swiss  women  was  offering  them  cakes  and  choc- 
olates, telling  them  of  the  children  at  home  who 
were  waiting  for  them,  but  there  was  little  re- 
sponse because  there  was  no  vitality  with  which  to 
make  it. 

We  were  reminded  of  these  children  week  after 
week  as  we  visited  Berlin,  or  Frankfort  am  Main, 
or  the  cities  of  Saxony  and  the  villages  throughout 
the  Erzgebirge  in  which  the  children  had  been 
starved  throughout  the  long  period  of  the  war 
and  of  the  armistice.  Perhaps  an  experience  in 
Leipzig  was  typical  when  we  visited  a  public  play- 
ground in  which  several  hundred  children  were 
having  a  noonday  meal  consisting  for  each  of  a 
pint  of  "war  soup,"  composed  of  war  meal  stirred 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     171 

into  a  pint  of  hot  water.  The  war  meal  was,  as 
always,  made  with  a  foundation  of  rye  or  wheat 
flour  to  which  had  been  added  ground  vegetables 
or  sawdust  in  order  to  increase  its  bulk.  The  chil- 
dren would  have  nothing  more  to  eat  until  supper, 
for  which  many  of  the  mothers  had  saved  the 
entire  daily  ration  of  bread  because,  as  they  some- 
times told  us,  they  hoped  thus  to  avert  the  hard- 
est thing  they  had  to  bear;  hearing  the  children 
whimper  and  moan  for  hours  after  they  were  put 
to  bed  because  they  were  too  hungry  to  go  to 
sleep. 

These  Leipzig  children  were  quite  as  listless 
as  all  the  others  we  had  seen;  when  the  playground 
director  announced  prizes  for  the  best  gardens, 
they  were  utterly  indifferent;  only  when  he  said 
he  hoped  by  day  after  tomorrow  to  give  them  milk 
in  their  soup  did  they  break  out  into  the  most 
ridiculous,  feeble  little  cheer  ever  heard.  The 
city  physician,  who  was  with  us,  challenged  the 
playground  director  as  to  his  ability  to  obtain  the 
milk,  to  which  the  director  replied  that  he  was  not 
sure  that  he  could,  but  that  there  was  a  prospect 
for  it,  and  that  the  children  must  have  something 
to  hope  for,  that  that  was  the  prerogative  of  the 
young.  With  this  uncertain  hope  we  left  them  to 
visit  day  nurseries,  child  welfare  stations,  schools 
and  orphanages  where  the  midday  meal  was  prac- 
tically the  same  war  soup.     We  were  told  by 


172     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

probation  officers  »nd  charity  workers  of  starved 
children  who  stole  the  family  furniture  and  cloth- 
ing, books  and  kitchen  utensils  in  order  to  sell 
them  for  food,  who  pulled  unripe  potatoes  and 
turnips  from  the  fields  for  miles  surrounding  the 
cities,  to  keep  themselves  alive. 

Our  experiences  in  the  midst  of  widespread 
misery,  did  not  differ  from  those  of  thousands  of 
other  Americans  who  were  bent  upon  succor  and 
relief  and  our  vivid  and  compelling  impressions  of 
widespread  starvation  were  confirmed  by  the  high- 
est authorities.  Mr.  Hoover  had  recently  de- 
clared that,  owing  to  diminished  food  production 
in  Europe,  approximately  100,000,000  Europeans 
were  then  dependent  upon  imported  food.  Sir 
George  Paish,  the  British  economist,  repeated  the 
statement  when  he  said  that  100,000,000  persons 
in  Europe  were  facing  starvation.  All  this  was 
made  much  worse  by  the  rapid  decline  in  the 
value  of  European  money  in  the  markets  of  the 
world. 

One  turned  instinctively  to  the  newly  created 
League  of  Nations.  Could  it  have  considered  this 
multitude  of  starving  children  as  its  concrete  prob- 
lem, feeding  them  might  have  been  the  quickest 
way  to  restore  the  divided  European  nations  to 
human  and  kindly  relationship.  Was  all  this  de- 
vastation the  result  of  hypernationalism  and  might 
not  the  very  recognition  of  a  human  obligation 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     173 

irrespective  of  national  boundaries  form  the  na- 
tural beginning  of  better  international  relation- 
ships? 

My  entire  experience  in  Europe  in  19 15  was  in 
marked  contrast  to  my  impressions  received  thirty- 
four  years  earlier,  in  1885.  Nationalism  was  also 
the  great  word  then,  but  with  quite  another  con- 
tent. At  that  moment  in  all  political  matters  the 
great  popular  word  had  been  Unity;  a  coming  to- 
gether into  new  national  systems  of  little  states 
which  had  long  been  separated.  The  words  of 
Mazzini,  who  had  died  scarcely  a  decade  before, 
were  constantly  on  the  lips  of  ardent  young  ora- 
tors, the  desire  to  unite,  to  overcome  differences, 
to  accentuate  likenesses,  was  everywhere  a  ruling 
influence  in  political  affairs.  Italy  had  become 
united  under  Victor  Emanuel;  the  first  Kaiser  and 
Bismarck  ruled  over  a  German  Empire  made  of 
many  minor  states.  It  rather  smacked  of  learn- 
ing, in  those  days,  to  use  the  words  Slavophile  and 
Panslavic,  but  we  knew  that  the  movement  stood 
for  unity  in  the  remoter  parts  of  Europe  where 
Bohemia  was  the  most  vocal,  although  she  talked 
less  of  a  republic  of  her  own  than  of  her  desire 
to  unite  with  her  fellow  Slavs.  The  most  strik- 
ing characteristic  of  all  these  nationalistic  move- 
ments had  been  their  burning  humanitarianism,  a 
sense  that  the  new  groupings  were  but  a  prepara- 
tion for  a  wider  synthesis,  that  a  federation  of  at 


174     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

least  the  European  states  was  a  possibility  in  the 
near  future. 

In  1885  I  had  seen  nationalistic  fervor  pulling 
scattered  people  together,  but  In  19 19  it  seemed 
equally  effective  In  pushing  those  apart  who  had 
once  been  combined — a  whole  ring  of  states  was 
pulling  out  of  Mother  Russia,  Bavaria  was  threat- 
ening to  leave  Germany,  and  Italy,  in  the  name 
of  nationalism  was  separating  a  line  of  coast  with 
its  hinterland  of  Slavs,  from  their  newly  found 
brethren.  Whereas  nationalism  thirty  years  ear- 
lier had  seemed  generous  and  inclusive,  stressing 
likenesses,  it  now  appeared  dogmatic  and  ruth- 
less, Insisting  upon  historic  prerogatives  quite  in- 
dependent of  the  popular  will.  Had  the  national- 
istic fervor  become  overgrown  and  over-reached 
itself,  or  was  it  merely  for  the  moment  so  self- 
assertive  that  the  creative  impulse  was  submerged 
into  the  possessive  Instinct?  Had  nationalism  be- 
come dogmatic  and  hardened  In  thirty-five  years? 
It  was  as  If  I  had  left  a  group  of  early  Christians 
and  come  back  Into  a  flourishing  mediaeval  church 
holding  great  possessions  and  equipped  with  well 
tried  methods  of  propaganda.  The  early  spon- 
taneity had  changed  into  an  authoritative  imposi- 
tion of  power.  One  received  the  Impression  every- 
where In  that  moment  when  nationalism  was 
so  tremendously  stressed,  that  the  nation  was 
demanding  worship  and  devotion  for  its  own  sake 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE    175 

similar  to  that  of  the  mediasval  church,  as  if 
it  existed  for  its  own  ends  of  growth  and  power 
irrespective  of  the  tests  of  reality.  It  demanded 
unqualified  obedience,  denounced  as  heretics  all 
who  differed,  insisted  that  it  alone  had  the  truth, 
and  exhibited  all  the  well  known  signs  of  dogma- 
tism, including  a  habit  of  considering  ordinary 
standards  inapplicable  to  a  certain  line  of  conduct 
if  it  were  inspired  by  motives  beyond  reproach. 

We  saw  arriving  in  Rotterdam,  from  the  Ger- 
man colonies  in  Africa  and  the  Pacific,  hundreds  of 
German  families  who  had  been  driven  from  their 
pioneer  homes  and  their  colonial  business  under- 
takings, primarily  because  they  belonged  to  the 
outlaw  nation;  in  many  of  the  railroad  stations  in 
Germany  there  were  posted  directions  for  the 
fugitives  coming  from  Posen,  from  Alsace,  from 
the  new  Czecho-Slovakia  and  from  the  Danzig 
corridor.  As  we  had  opportunity  to  learn  of  their 
experiences,  they  told  of  prohibition  of  language, 
of  the  forced  sale  of  real  estate,  of  the  confiscation 
of  business,  of  the  expulsion  from  university  fa- 
culties and  the  alienation  of  old  friends.  There 
was  something  about  it  all  that  was  curiously  ana- 
chronistic like  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from 
Spain,  or  Cromwell's  drive  through  Ireland  when 
the  Catholics  took  refuge  in  the  barren  west  coun- 
try, or  of  the  action  by  which  France  had  made 
herself  poorer  for  generations  when  she  banished 


176     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

her  Huguenots.  It  is  as  if  nationalism,  through 
the  terms  of  the  Peace  Conference  itself,  had 
fallen  back  into  an  earlier  psychology,  exhibit- 
ing a  blind  intolerance  which  does  not  properly 
belong  to  these  later  centuries. 

After  all,  the  new  Nationalism — even  counting 
its  rise  as  beginning  three  hundred  years  ago — is 
still  in  its  early  history.  It  might  be  possible  for 
its  representatives  to  meet  in  frank  and  fearless 
discussion  of  its  creeds  as  the  early  church  in  its 
first  centuries  called  its  Ecumenical  Councils. 

These  creeds  would  easily  divide  into  types: 
the  hypernationalism,  if  one  may  call  it  such,  of 
the  suppressed  nations,  as  Ireland,  Poland  or  Bo- 
hemia; the  imperialistic  nationalism  of  empires 
like  Great  Britain  in  which  colonial  expansion  had 
become  the  normal  expression  and  is  no  longer 
challenged  as  a  policy;  the  revolutionary  type, 
such  as  Russia  attempting  an  economic  state. 
Every  nation  would  show  traces  of  all  types  of 
nationalism,  and  it  would  be  found  that  all  types 
have  displayed  the  highest  devotion  to  their 
ideals. 

It  is  possible  that  such  a  hypothetical  Council 
would  discover  that  as  the  greatest  religious  war 
came  at  the  very  moment  when  men  were  decid- 
ing that  they  no  longer  cared  intensely  for  the 
theological  creeds  for  which  they  had  long  been 
fighting,  so  this  devastating  war  may  have  come 


IN  EUROPE  DURING  THE  ARMISTICE     177 

at  a  similar  moment  in  regard  to  national  dogmas. 
The  world,  at  the  very  verge  of  the  creation  of 
the  League  of  Nations  may  be  entering  an  era 
when  the  differing  types  will  no  longer  suppress 
each  other  but  live  together  in  a  fuller  and  richer 
comity  than  has  ever  before  been  possible.  But 
the  League  of  Nations  must  find  a  universal 
motive  which  shall  master  the  overstimulated 
nationalism  so  characteristic  of  Europe  after  the 
war. 

We  came  home  late  in  August,  inevitably  dis- 
appointed in  the  newly  formed  League,  but  eager 
to  see  what  would  happen  when  "the  United  States 
came  in  I" 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR 

A  FEW  months  after  our  return  from  Europe 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  Woman's  Peace  Party 
was  held  in  Philadelphia,  again  at  the  Friends' 
Meeting  House.  The  reports  showed  that  during 
the  war  the  state  branches  had  modified  their  ac- 
tivities in  various  ways.  The  Massachusetts 
branch  had  carried  on  war  relief  of  many  kinds, 
such  as  the  operation  of  a  plant  for  desiccating 
vegetables.  The  New  York  Branch  on  the  other 
hand,  had  become  more  radical  and  in  defense  of 
its  position  published  a  monthly  Journal  entitled 
The  Four  Winds,  which  was  constantly  chal- 
lenged by  the  Federal  authorities.  The  annual 
meeting  adopted  the  somewhat  formidable  name 
of  Woman's  International  League  for  Peace  and 
Freedom,  Section  for  the  United  States,  the  Zu- 
rich resolutions  were  accepted  for  substance  of 
doctrine  and  recommended  for  study. 

We  made  a  careful  restatement  of  our  policies, 
but  the  bald  outline  gave  no  more  than  a  hint  of 
the  indomitable  faith  of  the  women  gathered 
there  who,  after  nearly  five  years  of  anxiety  and 

178 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  179 

of  hope  deferred,  still  solemnly  agreed  to  renew 
the  struggle  against  the  war  system  and  to  work 
for  a  wider  comity  of  nations. 

Two  of  the  new  officers,  Mrs.  Lucy  Biddle 
Lewis  and  Mrs.  Wm.  L  Hull,  belonged  to  the 
Society  of  Friends,  without  whose  help  it  would 
have  been  hard  to  survive.  It  is  difficult  for  me 
adequately  to  express  my  admiration  for  Mrs. 
Anna  Garlin  Spencer  who  was  president  of  the 
National  League  during  the  most  difficult  period 
of  its  existence.  With  the  help  of  two  able  execu- 
tive secretaries,  she  deliberately  revived  an  organ- 
ization devoted  to  the  discredited  cause  of  Peace 
at  a  moment  when  the  established  peace  societies 
with  which  she  had  been  long  connected  had  care- 
fully stripped  themselves  of  all  activity. 

In  some  respects  it  was  more  difficult  at  that 
time  to  be  known  as  a  pacifist  than  it  had  been  dur- 
ing the  war,  and  if  any  of  us  had  ever  imagined 
that  our  troubles  would  be  over  when  the  war 
ended,  we  were  doomed  to  disappointment.  There 
were  many  illustrations  of  our  continued  unpopu- 
larity. In  the  early  days  of  the  armistice,  for 
instance,  a  group  of  German  women,  distressed 
over  such  terms  as  the  demand  for  the  immediate 
restoration  of  3000  milch  cows  to  Belgium,  cabled 
to  Mrs.  Wilson  at  the  White  House  and  also  to 
me.  My  cable  was  never  delivered  and  I  knew 
nothing  but  what  the  newspapers  reported  con- 


i8o     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

cerning  It,  although  the  incident  started  an  inter- 
minable chain  of  comment  and  speculation  as  to 
why  I  should  have  been  selected,  none  of  which 
stumbled  upon  the  simple  truth  that  I  had  presided 
over  a  Congress  at  The  Hague  attended  by  two 
of  the  signatories  of  the  cable. 

The  incident,  however,  was  but  a  foretaste  of 
the  suspicions  and  misinterpretations  resulting 
from  the  efforts  of  Miss  Hamilton  and  myself  to 
report  conditions  in  Germany  and  so  far  as  pos- 
sible to  secure  contributions  to  the  fund  the 
Friends  Service  Committee  in  Philadelphia  was 
collecting  for  German  and  Austrian  children. 
There  was  no  special  odium  attached  to  the  final 
report  which  we  made  to  the  Friends  upon  our 
return  nor  upon  Its  wide  distribution  in  printed 
form;  it  was  also  comparatively  easy  to  speak  to 
the  International  Committee  for  the  Promotion 
of  Friendship  between  the  Churches  and  to  similar 
bodies,  but  when  it  came  to  addressing  audiences 
of  German  descent,  so-called  "German-Ameri- 
cans," the  trouble  began.  The  first  Chicago  meet- 
ing of  this  kind  was  carefully  arranged,  "opened 
with  prayer"  by  a  popular  clergyman  and  closed 
by  a  Catholic  priest,  and  It  went  through  without 
difficulty  although,  of  course,  no  word  of  it  ap- 
peared in  any  Chicago  newspaper  printed  In  Eng- 
lish. Milwaukee,  St.  Louis  and  Cleveland,  how- 
ever, were  more  difficult,  although  my  theme  was 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  i8i 

purely  humanitarian  with  no  word  of  politics.  I 
told  no  audience  that  our  passports  had  been 
viseed  in  Frankfort  in  the  city  hall  flying  a  red 
flag,  that  housing  space  was  carefully  propor- 
tioned with  reference  to  the  need  of  the  inhabi- 
tants and  other  such  matters,  which  would  have 
shocked  the  audience  of  prosperous  German- 
Americans  quite  as  much  as  any  one  else.  We 
always  told  these  audiences  as  we  told  many 
others  who  invited  us,  about  the  work  of  the 
Friends'  Service  Committee  in  Northern  France 
and  over  widespread  portions  of  Central  and 
Eastern  Europe  irrespective  of  national  bound- 
aries. Some  money  was  always  sent  to  Philadel- 
phia for  Germany  but  quite  often  it  was  carefully 
marked  for  one  of  the  Allied  countries  in  which 
the  Friends'  Service  Committee  was  also  at  work. 
I  was  equally  grateful  for  those  contributions  but 
I  often  longed  to  hear  some  one  suggest  that 
"to  feed  thine  enemy  if  he  hunger"  might  lead 
us  back  to  normal  relations  with  him,  or  to  hear 
one  of  the  many  clergymen  pray  that  we  might 
forgive  our  enemies.  No  such  sentiment  was 
uttered  in  my  hearing  during  that  winter,  al- 
though in  the  early  Spring  I  was  much  cheered 
at  a  meeting  in  Denver  when  a  club  woman 
quoted  apropos  of  feeding  German  children,  from 
Bojer's  "The  Great  Hunger" :  "I  sow  corn  in  the 


1 82      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

field  of  mine  enemy  in  order  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  God." 

It  was  a  period  or  pronounced  reaction,  char- 
acterized by  all  sorts  of  espionage,  of  wholesale 
raids,  arrests  and  deportations.  Liberals  every- 
where soon  realized  that  a  contest  was  on  all  over 
the  world  for  the  preservation  of  that  hard  won 
liberty  which  since  the  days  of  Edmund  Burke 
had  come  to  mean  to  the  civilized  world  not  only 
security  in  life  and  property  but  in  opinion  as 
well.  Many  people  had  long  supposed  liberalism 
to  be  freedom  to  know  and  to  say,  not  what  was 
popular  or  convenient  or  even  what  was  patriotic, 
but  what  they  held  to  be  true.  But  those  very 
liberals  came  to  realize  that  a  distinct  aftermath 
of  the  war  was  the  dominance  of  the  mass  over 
the  individual  to  such  an  extent  that  it  constituted 
a  veritable  revolution  in  our  social  relationships. 
Every  part  of  the  country  had  its  own  manifesta- 
tions of  suspicion  and  distrust  which  to  a  surpris- 
ing degree  fastened  upon  the  immigrants.  These 
felt,  some  of  them  with  good  reason,  that  they 
were  being  looked  upon  with  suspicion  and  re- 
garded as  different  from  the  rest  of  the  world; 
that  whatever  happened  in  this  country  that  was 
hard  to  understand  was  put  off  upon  them,  as  if 
they  alone  were  responsible.  In  such  a  situation 
they  naturally  became  puzzled  and  irritated. 
With  all  the  rest  of  the  world  America  fell  back 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR         183 

into  the  old  habit  of  judging  men,  not  by  their 
individual  merits  or  capacities,  but  by  the  cate- 
gories of  race  and  religion,  thrusting  them  back, 
into  the  part  of  the  world  in  which  they  had  been 
born.  Many  of  the  immigrants,  Poles,  Bohem- 
ians and  Croatians,  were  eager  to  be  called  by 
their  new  names.  They  were  keenly  alive  to  the 
fresh  start  made  in  Poland,  in  Czecho-Slovakia,  in 
Jugo-Slavia  and  in  other  parts  of  Eastern  and 
Southern  Europe.  They  knew,  of  course,  of  the 
redistributions  in  land,  of  the  recognition  of  peas- 
ant proprietorship  occurring  not  only  in  the  vari- 
ous countries  in  which  actual  revolutions  had  taken 
place  as  in  Hungary  and  Russia,  but  in  other  coun- 
tries such  as  Roumania,  where  there  had  been  no 
violent  revolution.  These  immigrants  were  very 
eager  to  know  what  share  they  themselves  might 
have  in  these  great  happenings  if  they  returned. 
They  longed  to  participate  in  the  founding  of  a 
new  state  which  might  guarantee  the  liberties  in 
search  of  which  they  themselves  had  come  to 
America.  They  were  also  anxious  about  unto- 
ward experiences  which  might  have  befallen  their 
kinsfolk  in  those  remote  countries.  For  five  years 
many  of  them  had  heard  nothing  directly  from 
their  families  and  their  hearts  were  wrung  over 
the  possible  starvation  of  their  parents  and  some- 
times of  their  wives  and  children. 

Had  we  as  citizens  of  the  United  States  made  a 


1 84      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

widespread  and  generous  response  to  this  over- 
whelming anxiety,  much  needed  results  might  have 
accrued  to  ourselves;  our  sympathy  and  aid  given 
to  their  kinsmen  in  the  old  world  might  have 
served  to  strengthen  the  bonds  between  us  and 
the  foreigners  living  within  our  borders.  There 
was  a  chance  to  restore  the  word  alien  to  a  righte- 
ous use  and  to  end  its  service  as  a  term  of  re- 
proach. To  ignore  the  natural  anxiety  of  the  Rus- 
sians and  to  fail  to  understand  their  inevitable  re- 
sentment against  an  unauthorized  blockade,  to 
account  for  their  "restlessness"  by  all  sorts  of 
fantastic  explanations  was  to  ignore  a  human  situ- 
ation which  was  full  of  possibilities  for  a  fuller 
fellowship  and  understanding. 

It  was  stated  in  the  Senate  that  one  and  a  half 
million  European  immigrants  had  applied  in  the 
winter  of  '19  and  '20  for  return  passports.  In 
one  small  Western  city  in  which  800  Russians  were 
living,  275  went  to  the  Western  Coast  hoping  for 
an  opportunity  to  embark  for  Siberia  and  thus  to 
reach  Russia.  Most  of  them  were  denied  pass- 
ports and  the  enforced  retention  of  so  many  peo- 
ple constantly  made  for  what  came  to  be  called 
social  unrest.  We  would  sometimes  hear  a  Rus- 
sian say,  "When  I  was  in  the  old  country  I  used  to 
dream  constantly  of  America,  and  of  the  time  I 
might  come  here,  but  now  I  go  about  with  the 
same  longing  in  my  heart  for  Russia,   and  am 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR         185 

homesick  to  go  back  to  her."  In  Chicago  many  of 
those  who  tried  in  vain  to  return,  began  to  pre- 
pare themselves  in  all  sorts  of  ways  for  usefulness 
in  the  new  Russian  state.  Because  Russia  needed 
skilled  mechanics  they  themselves  founded  schools 
in  applied  mathematics,  in  mechanical  drawing, 
in  pattern  work,  in  automobiling. 

It  was  one  of  these  latter  schools  in  Chicago, 
where  they  were  so  cautious  that  they  did  not 
teach  any  sort  of  history  or  economics,  which  was 
raided  in  the  early  part  of  January,  1920.  A 
general  raid  under  the  direction  of  the  federal 
Department  of  Justice  "ran  in"  numbers  of  Chi- 
cago suspects  on  the  second  of  January,  but  an 
enterprising  states  attorney  in  Chicago,  doubtless 
craving  the  political  prestige  to  be  thus  gained, 
anticipated  the  federal  action  by  twenty-four  hours 
and  conducted  raids  on  his  own  account.  The  im- 
migrants arrested  without  warrant  were  thrust 
into  crowded  police  stations  and  all  other  avail- 
able places  of  detention.  The  automobile  school 
was  carried  off  bodily,  the  teachers,  the  sixty-four 
pupils,  the  books  and  papers;  the  latter  were  con- 
sidered valuable  because  the  algebraic  formulas 
appeared  so  incriminating. 

One  Russian  among  those  arrested  on  January 
1st,  1920,  I  had  known  for  many  years  as  a 
member  of  a  Tolstoy  society,  which  I  had  attended 
a  few  times  after  my  visit  to  Russia  in  1896.    The 


i86    PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

society  was  composed  of  Russians  committed  to 
the  theory  of  non-resistance  and  anxious  to  ad- 
vance the  philosophy  underlying  Tolstoy's  books. 
I  knew  of  no  group  In  Chicago  whose  members 
I  should  have  considered  less  dangerous.  This 
man,  with  twenty-three  other  prisoners,  was  thrust 
into  a  cell  built  for  eight  men.  There  was  no 
room  to  sit,  even  upon  the  floor,  they  could  only 
stand  closely  together,  take  turns  in  lying  on  the 
benches  and  in  standing  by  the  door  where  they 
might  exercise  by  stretching  their  hands  to  the 
top  bars.  Because  they  were  federal  prisoners  the 
police  refused  to  feed  them,  but  by  the  second  day 
coffee  and  sandwiches  were  brought  to  them  by 
federal  officials.  But  the  half-starved  Tolstoyan 
even  then  would  not  eat  meat  nor  drink  coffee,  but 
waited  patiently  until  his  wife  found  him  and 
could  feed  him  cereals  and  milk.  As  a  young  man 
he  had  edited  the  periodical  of  a  humanitarian  so- 
ciety In  Russia  and  it  was  as  a  convinced  humani- 
tarian that  he  began  to  study  Tolstoy.  Because 
the  grand  jury  held  him  for  trial  under  a  state 
charge  he  could  not  even  be  deported  if  the  fed- 
eral charge  were  sustained.  It  was  Impossible, 
of  course,  not  to  "stand  by"  old  friends  such  as 
he  and  others  whom  I  had  known  for  years,  but 
the  experience  of  securing  bail  for  them;  of  pre- 
siding at  a  meeting  of  protest  against  such  viola- 
tion of  constitutional  rights;  of  identification  with 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  187 

the  vigorous  Civil  Liberties  Union  in  New  York 
and  its  Chicago  branch,  did  not  add  to  my  respect- 
ability in  the  eyes  of  my  fellow  citizens. 

And  yet  the  earlier  Settlements  had  believed 
that  the  opportunity  to  live  close  to  the  people 
would  enable  the  residents  to  know  intimately 
how  simple  people  felt  upon  fundamental  issues 
and  we  had  hoped  that  the  residents  would  stand 
fast  to  that  knowledge  in  the  midst  of  a  social 
crisis  where  an  interpreter  would  be  valuable. 
Could  not  such  activity  be  designated  as  "settle- 
ment work?"  It  was  certainly  so  regarded  by  a 
handful  of  settlement  people  in  Boston  and  New 
York  as  well  as  Chicago.  There  were  two  con- 
tending trends  of  public  opinion  at  this  time  which 
reminded  me  of  the  early  Settlement  days  in  the 
United  States,  one  the  working  man's  universal 
desire  for  public  discussion  and  the  other  the  em- 
ployer's belief  that  such  discussion  per  se  was 
dangerous. 

In  the  midst  of  the  world-wide  social  confusion 
and  distress,  there  inevitably  developed  a  pro- 
found scepticism  as  to  the  value  of  established  in- 
stitutions. The  situation  in  itself  afforded  a  chal- 
lenge, for  men  longed  to  turn  from  the  animosi- 
ties of  war  and  from  the  futility  of  the  peace 
terms  to  unifying  principles,  and  yet  at  that  very 
moment  any  attempt  at  bold  and  penetrating  dis- 
cussion was  quickly  and  ruthlessly  suppressed  as  if 


1 88      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

men  had  no  right  to  consider  together  the  social 
conditions  surrounding  them. 

This  dread  and  fear  of  discussion  somewhat  ac- 
counted for  the  public  sentiment  exhibited  toward 
the  hundred  members  of  the  I.  W.  W.  who  were 
tried  In  Chicago  for  sedition.  They  were  held 
in  the  Cook  County  jail  for  many  months  await- 
ing trial.  Our  jail  conditions,  which  are  always 
bad,  were  made  worse  through  the  inevitable  over- 
crowding resulting  from  the  addition  of  so  many 
federal  prisoners.  One  of  the  men  died,  one  be- 
came insane,  one,  a  temperamental  Irishman,  fell 
into  a  profound  melancholy  after  he  had  been 
obliged  to  listen  throughout  the  night  to  the  erec- 
tion of  a  gallows  in  the  corridor  upon  which  his 
cell  opened  where  a  murderer  was  "to  meet  the 
penalty  of  the  law  at  dawn."  Before  the  drop  fell 
the  prisoners  were  removed  from  their  cells,  but 
too  late  to  save  the  mind  of  one  of  them.  Eleven 
of  the  other  prisoners  contracted  tuberculosis  and 
although  the  federal  judge  who  was  hearing  the 
case  lowered  the  bail  and  released  others  on  their 
"own  recognizance"  In  order  to  lessen  the  fearful 
risks,  the  prisoners  were  then  faced  with  the  neces- 
sity for  earning  enough  money  for  lodging  and 
breakfast,  before  the  long  day  in  court  began. 
Fortunately  the  judge  allowed  them  a  dinner  and  a 
supper  at  the  expense  of  the  government.  Some 
of  us  started  a  "milk  fund"  for  those  who  were 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  189 

plainly  far  on  the  road  to  tuberculosis  and  per- 
haps nothing  revealed  the  state  of  the  public  mind 
more  clearly  than  the  fact  that  while  we  did  col- 
lect a  fund  the  people  who  gave  it  were  in  a 
constant  state  of  panic  lest  their  names  become 
known  in  connection  with  this  primitive  form  of 
charity.  The  I.  W.  W.'s  were  not  on  the  whole 
"pacifists"  and  I  used  to  regret  sometimes  that 
our  group  should  be  the  one  fated  to  perform  this 
purely  humanitarian  function  which  would  cer- 
tainly become  associated  with  sedition  in  the  public 
mind.  We  should  however  logically  have  escaped 
all  criticism  for  at  that  very  moment  the  repre- 
sentatives of  "patriotic"  societies  working  in  the 
prison  camps  of  the  most  backward  countries  at 
war,  were  allowed  to  separate  the  tubercular  pris- 
oners from  their  fellows. 

The  Berger  trial  came  in  January  of  the  wretch- 
ed winter.  I  had  met  Victor  Berger  first  when  as 
a  young  man  he  had  spoken  before  a  society  at 
Hull-House  which  was  being  addressed  by  Ben- 
jamin Kidd,  the  English  author  of  the  then  very 
popular  book  on  "Social  Evolution."  I  had  seen 
Mr.  Berger  occasionally  during  the  period  when 
he  was  in  Washington  as  a  Congressman,  and 
knew  that  many  of  the  Socialists  regarded  him  as 
slow  because  he  insisted  upon  proceeding  from  one 
legislative  measure  to  another  and  had  no  use  for 
"direct  action."     And  yet  here  he  was  indicted 


190     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

with  three  Chicago  men,  one  a  clergyman  whom  I 
had  known  for  years,  for  "conspiring  to  overthrow 
the  government  of  the  United  States." 

Later  there  was  the  sudden  rise  of  "agents  pro- 
vocateurs" in  industrial  strikes,  and  the  strikers 
believed  that  they  were  employed  at  Gary,  by  the 
secret  service  department  of  the  government  itself. 
The  stories  that  were  constantly  current  recalled 
my  bewilderment  years  ago  when  the  Russian  exile 
Azeff  died  in  Paris.  He  was  considered  by  one 
faction  as  an  agent  provocateur,  by  another  as  a 
devoted  revolutionist.  The  events  of  his  remark- 
able life,  which  were  undisputed,  might  easily 
support  either  theory,  quite  as  In  a  famous  Eng- 
lish trial  for  sedition  a  prisoner,  named  Watts, 
had  been  so  used  by  both  sides  that  the  English 
court  itself  could  not  determine  his  status.  It 
was  hard  to  believe  the  story  that  a  Russian  well 
known  as  of  the  Czar's  police,  had  organized 
twenty-four  men  in  Gary  for  "direct  action,"  had 
supplied  them  freely  both  with  radical  literature 
and  with  firearms  but  that  fortunately  just  before 
the  headquarters  were  raided  the  strike  leaders 
discovered  "the  plot,"  persuaded  the  Russians  that 
they  were  being  duped  by  the  simple  statement 
that  any  one  who  gave  them  arms  in  a  district  un- 
der military  control,  was  deliberately  putting  them 
in  danger  of  their  Fives. 

So  it  was  perhaps  not  surprising  that  the  Rus- 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR        191 

slans  became  angry  and  confused  and  were  quite 
sure  that  they  were  being  incited  and  betrayed  by 
government  agents.  The  Russians  were  even  sus- 
picious of  help  from  philanthropists  because  a  man 
who  had  been  head  of  the  Russian  bureau  in  the 
Department  of  Public  Information  and  who  had 
stood  by  the  discredited  Sisson  letters,  had  after 
the  discontinuance  of  the  Department  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  Russian  Section  of  the  American  Red 
Cross;  it  was  suspected  that  the  Settlements  even, 
although  they  were  furnishing  bail,  might  be  in 
collusion  with  the  Red  Cross  Society. 

I  got  a  certain  historic  perspective,  If  not  com- 
fort at  least  enlargement  of  view,  by  being  able 
to  compare  our  widespread  panic  in  the  United 
States  about  Russia  to  that  which  prevailed  In 
England  during  and  after  the  French  Revolution. 
A  flood  of  reactionary  pamphlets,  similar  to  those 
Issued  by  our  Security  Leagues,  had  then  filled 
England,  teaching  contempt  of  France  and  her 
"Liberty,"  urging  confidence  In  English  society 
as  It  existed  and  above  all  warning  of  the  dangers 
of  any  change.  Hatred  of  France,  a  passionate 
contentment  with  things  as  they  were,  and  a  dread 
of  the  lower  classes,  became  characteristic  of  Eng- 
lish society.  The  French  Revolution  was  continu- 
ally used  as  a  warning,  for  In  It  could  be  seen  the 
Inevitable  and  terrible  end  of  the  first  steps  to- 
ward democracy.     Even  when  the  panic  subsided 


192      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

the  temper  of  society  remained  unchanged  for 
years,  so  that  in  the  English  horror  of  any  kind 
of  revolution,  the  struggle  of  the  hand-loom 
weaver  in  an  agony  of  adjustment  to  the  changes 
of  machine  industry,  appeared  as  a  menace  against 
an  innocent  community. 

Was  this  attitude  of  the  English  gentry  long 
since  dead,  being  repeated  in  our  so-called  upper 
classes,  especially  among  people  in  professional 
and  financial  circles?  Among  them  and  their  fam- 
ilies war  work  opened  a  new  type  of  activity,  more 
socialized  in  form  than  many  of  them  had  ever 
known  before,  and  it  also  gave  an  outlet  to  their 
higher  emotions.  In  the  minds  of  many  good 
men  and  women  the  war  itself  thus  became  associ- 
ated with  all  that  was  high  and  fine  and  patriotism 
received  the  sanction  of  a  dogmatic  religion  which 
would  brook  no  heretical  difference  of  opinion. 
Added  to  this,  of  course,  were  the  millions  of  peo- 
ple throughout  the  country  who  were  actually  in 
the  clutches  of  those  unknown  and  subhuman 
forces  which  may  easily  destroy  the  life  of  man- 
kind. A  scholar  has  said  of  them,  "morally  it 
would  seem  that  these  forces  are  not  better  but 
less  good  than  mankind,  for  man  at  least  loves  and 
pities  and  tries  to  understand."  Such  forces  may 
have  been  responsible  for  the  mob  violence  which 
broke  out  for  a  time  against  alien  enemies  and 
so-called  "traitors,"  or  it  may  have  been  merely 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  193 

the  unreason,  the  superstition,  the  folly  and  in- 
justice of  the  old  "law  of  the  herd."  There  was 
possibly  still  another  factor  in  the  situation  in  re- 
gard to  Russia, — the  acid  test,  a  touch*  of  the 
peculiar  bitterness  evolved  during  a  strike  where 
property  interests  are  assailed.  That  typical 
American,  William  Allen  White,  once  wrote,  "My 
idea  of  hell,  is  a  place  where  every  man  owns  a 
little  property  and  thinks  he  is  just  about  to  lose 
it." 

Was  the  challenge  which  Russia  threw  down  to 
the  present  economic  system  after  all  the  factor 
most  responsible  for  the  unreasoning  panic  which 
seemed  to  hold  the  nation  in  its  grip,  or  was  It  that 
the  war  spirit,  having  been  painstakingly  evolved 
by  the  united  press  of  the  civilized  world,  could  not 
easily  be  exorcised?  The  war  had  made  obvious 
the  sheer  inability  of  the  world  to  prevent  terror 
and  misery.  It  had  been  a  great  revelation  of 
feebleness,  as  if  weakness,  ignorance  and  over- 
weening nationalism  had  combined  to  produce 
something  much  more  cruel  than  any  calculated 
cruelty  could  have  been.  Was  the  universal  un- 
happiness  which  seemed  to  envelop  the  United 
States  as  well  as  Europe  an  inevitable  aftermath 
of  war? 

So  far  as  we  had  anticipated  any  contribution 
from  the  non-resistant  Russian  peasant  to  the 
cause  of  Universal  Peace,  the  events  In  militarized 


194      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Russia  during  the  years  after  the  war  threw  us  into 
black  despair.  Not  only  had  the  Bolshevist  lead- 
ers produced  one  of  the  largest  armies  in  Europe, 
but  disquieting  rumors  came  out  of  Russia  that 
in  order  to  increase  production  in  their  time  of 
need  the  government  had  been  conscripting  men 
both  for  industry  and  transportation.  It  was 
quite  possible  that  the  Russian  revolutionists  were 
making  the  same  mistake  in  thus  forging  a  new 
tool  for  their  own  use  which  earlier  revolution- 
ists had  made  when  they  invented  universal  mili- 
tary conscription.  An  example  of  the  failure  of 
trying  to  cast  out  the  devil  by  Beezlebub,  it  had 
been  used  as  a  temporary  expedient  when  the 
first  French  revolutionists  were  fighting  "the 
world,"  but  had  gradually  become  an  established 
thing,  and  in  the  end  was  the  chief  implement  of 
reaction.  It  alone  has  thrown  Europe  back  tre- 
mendously, entailing  an  ever-increasing  cost  of 
military  establishment  and  consequent  increased 
withdrawal  of  manpower  from  the  processes  of 
normal  living.  The  proportion  of  soldiers  in 
Europe  has  enormously  increased  since  the  middle 
ages;  then  out  of  every  thousand  men  four  were 
soldiers,  now  out  of  every  thousand  men  a  hundred 
and  twenty  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  are  soldiers. 
These  were  the  figures  before  the  great  war. 

Even  the  League  of  Nations,  during  the  first 
year  of  its  existence  brought  little  comfort.    Inci- 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR         195 

dent  to  the  irritating  and  highly  individualistic 
position  which  the  pacifist  was  forced  to  assume 
throughout  the  war,  was  the  difficulty  of  combin- 
ing with  his  old  friends  and  colleagues  in  efforts 
for  world  organization  which  seemed  so  reason- 
able. Before  I  went  to  The  Hague  in  the  spring 
of  19 1 5  I  had  known  something  of  Mr.  Hamil- 
ton Holt's  plan  to  organize  a  league  whose  propa- 
ganda should  relegate  the  use  of  military  force 
to  an  international  police  service.  It  was  while  we 
were  at  The  Hague  that  the  great  meeting  was 
held  in  Independence  Hall  in  Philadelphia  and  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace  was  organized.  The 
program  did  not  attempt  to  outlaw  war  but  would 
allow  it  only  under  certain  carefully  defined  con- 
ditions. It  was  difficult  to  resist  an  invitation  to 
join  the  new  league,  and  I  refused  only  because  its 
Hberal  concessions  as  to  the  use  of  warfare  seemed 
to  me  to  add  to  the  dislocation  of  the  times,  al- 
ready so  out  of  joint.  Had  I  yielded  to  my  join- 
ing impulse  I  should  certainly  have  been  obliged 
to  resign  later.  The  League  to  Enforce  Peace 
held  a  meeting  in  New  York  City  soon  after  the 
United  States  had  entered  the  war  and  put  forth  a 
program  hard  to  reconcile  even  with  its  first  state- 
ment of  principles.  But  after  the  armistice  had 
been  signed,  at  a  meeting  held  in  Madison,  Wis- 
consin, in  the  winter  of  19 19,  their  clear  statement 
of  a  League  of  Nations  program  brought  to  their 


196     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

banner  many  of  the  doubtful,  myself  among 
them. 

The  later  winter  and  spring  of  19 19  afforded 
a  wonderful  opportunity  to  talk  about  the  League 
of  Nations.  It  was  all  in  the  making  and  we,  Its 
advocates,  had  the  world  before  us  with  which  to 
Illustrate  "the  hopes  of  mankind."  Among  my 
audiences  In  the  half  dozen  states  In  which  I  lec- 
tured there  would  often  be  a  Pole  who  rejoiced 
that  after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  oppression 
Poland  would  be  free;  an  Italian  longing  impa- 
tiently to  welcome  back  Italia  Irredenta;  a  Bo- 
hemian exulting  that  the  long  struggle  of  his  fel- 
low-countrymen had  at  last  reached  success;  an 
Armenian  who  saw  the  end  of  Turkish  rule.  Con- 
scious at  moments  that  all  this  portended  perhaps 
too  much  nationalism,  I  could  only  assure  myself 
and  an  audience  absorbed  In  animated  discussion, 
that  such  a  state  of  mind  was  inevitable  after  war, 
and  would  doubtless  find  Its  place  In  the  plans 
being  developed  In  Paris. 

I  had  a  sharp  reminder  In  the  midst  of  this  hal- 
cyon period  of  hope  and  expectation  that  a  pacifist 
could  not  acceptably  talk  even  of  the  terms  of 
peace  to  those  who  most  ardently  promoted  the 
war.  I  had  accepted  an  Invitation  from  a  pro- 
gram committee  to  address  one  of  the  long  estab- 
lished woman's  organizations  of  Chicago  upon  the 
League  of  Nations,  only  to  find  that  there  was  a 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  WAR  197 

sharp  division  within  the  membership  as  to  the 
propriety  of  allowing  a  pacifist  to  appear  before 
them.  The  president  and  the  board  valiantly 
stood  by  the  Invitation  and  the  address  was  finally 
given  on  the  date  announced  to  the  half  of  the  club 
and  their  friends  who  were  willing  to  hear.  But 
the  incident  gave  me  a  curious  throw-back  Into  a 
state  of  mind  I  was  fast  leaving  behind  me,  and 
although  fortunately  a  day  or  two  later  I  spoke 
in  Chicago  under  the  direct  auspices  of  the  League 
to  Enforce  Peace  with  ex-President  Taft  presid- 
ing, which  I  afterward  learned  somewhat  restored 
me  among  the  doubting,  I  concluded  that  to  the 
very  end  pacifists  will  occasionally  realize  that 
they  have  been  permanently  crippled  In  their 
natural  and  friendly  relations  to  their  fellow 
citizens. 

The  League  of  Nations  afforded  an  opportu- 
nity for  wide  difference  of  opinion  In  every  group. 
The  Woman's  Peace  Party  held  its  annual  meet- 
ing in  Chicago  in  the  spring  of  1920  and  found  our 
Branches  fairly  divided  upon  the  subject.  The 
Boston  branch  had  followed  the  leadership  of 
the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  throughout  the  year 
and  after  the  Madison  meeting  others  had  also, 
always  with  the  notable  exception  of  the  Phila- 
delphia branch,  composed  largely  of  clear-sighted 
Quakers  and  of  two  other  branches  which  were 
more   radical.      The   difference   of   opinion  was 


198     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

limited  always  as  to  the  existing  League  and  never 
for  a  moment  did  anyone  doubt  the  need  for  con- 
tinued effort  to  bring  about  an  adequate  inter- 
national organization.  Some  of  our  members  co- 
operated with  the  League  of  Free  Nations  Asso- 
ciation (now  the  Foreign  Policies  Association) 
which  had  been  organized  by  liberals  in  order  to 
keep  the  democratic  war  aims  before  the  public. 
Even  when  peacemaking  was  going  forward  at 
Versailles  the  association  pointed  out  vulnerable 
points  in  the  draft  at  cost  of  being  roundly  de- 
nounced. 

We  all  believed  that  the  ardor  and  self  sacrifice 
so  characteristic  of  youth  could  be  enlisted  for  the 
vitally  energetic  role  required  to  inaugurate  a 
new  type  of  international  life  in  the  world.  We 
realized  that  it  is  only  the  ardent  spirits,  the  lovers 
of  mankind,  who  can  break  down  the  suspicion  and 
lack  of  understanding  which  have  so  long  pre- 
vented the  changes  upon  which  international  good 
order  depend.  These  men  of  good  will  we  be- 
lieved, would  at  last  create  a  political  organization 
enabling  nations  to  secure  without  war  those  high 
ends  which  they  had  vainly  although  so  gallantly 
sought  to  obtain  upon  the  battlefield. 


CHAPTER  X 

A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  TO  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

During  the  first  year  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
there  were  times  when  we  felt  that  the  govern- 
ments must  develope  a  new  set  of  motives  and  of 
habits,  certainly  a  new  personnel  before  they 
would  be  able  to  create  a  genuine  League;  that 
the  governmental  representatives  were  fumbling 
awkwardly  at  a  new  task  for  which  their  previous 
training  in  international  relations  had  absolutely 
unfitted  them. 

In  a  book  entitled  "International  Government" 
put  out  by  the  Fabian  Society,  its  author,  Leonard 
Woolf,  demonstrates  the  super-caution  govern- 
ments traditionally  exhibit  in  regard  to  all  foreign 
relationships  even  when  under  the  pressure  of 
great  human  needs.  The  illustrations  I  remember 
most  distinctly  were  the  "International  Diplo- 
matic Conferences"  following  epidemics  of  chol- 
era in  Europe  between  1851  and  1892.  Five  times 
these  Conferences,  convened  in  haste  and  dread, 
adjourned  without  action,  largely  because  each, 
nation  was  afraid  to  delegate  any  power  to  an- 

199 


200     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

other,  lest  national  sovereignty  be  Impaired.  The 
last  European  epidemic  of  cholera  broke  out  in 
1892.  Even  then  national  prestige  and  other  ab- 
stractions dear  to  the  heart  of  the  diplomat  con- 
fined the  quarantine  regulations,  signed  by  thirteen 
states,  to  ships  passing  through  the  Suez  Canal, 
the  governments  hoping  thus  to  provide  a  barrier 
against  disease  at  the  point  where  the  streams 
of  pilgrim  traffic  and  Asiatic  trading  crossed  each 
other.  Mr.  Woolf  points  out  that  if  the  state 
had  any  connection  with  the  people,  it  was  cer- 
tainly of  vital  interest  that  cholera  should  not  be 
allowed  to  spread  into  Europe;  but  that  these 
genuine  human  interests  were  sacrificed  to  a  so- 
called  foreign  policy,  to  "a  reputation  for  finesse 
and  diplomatic  adroitness,  confined  to  a  tiny  circle 
of  government  diplomats."  In  the  meantime  the 
pragmatic  old  world  had  gone  on  its  way,  and  be- 
cause there  was  developing  a  new  sense  of  respon- 
sibility for  public  health,  scientists  and  doctors 
from  many  nations  had  become  organized  into 
International  Associations.  In  fact  there  were 
so  many  of  these,  that  a  "Permanent  International 
Commission  of  the  International  Congresses  of 
Medicine"  was  finally  established.  Such  organiza- 
tions were  doing  all  sorts  of  things  about  cholera, 
while  the  governments  under  which  they  lived 
were  afraid  to  act  together  because  each  so  highly 
prized  Its  national  sovereignty. 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  201 

Did  something  of  this  spirit,  still  surviving,  in- 
evitably tend  to  Inhibit  action  among  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  nations  first  collected  under  the 
auspices  of  the  League  of  Nations,  and  will  the 
League  ever  be  able  to  depend  upon  nationalism 
even  multiplied  by  forty-eight  or  sixty?  Must  not 
the  League  evoke  a  human  motive  transcending 
and  yet  embracing  all  particularist  nationalisms, 
before  it  can  function  with  validity? 

During  the  first  year  of  the  League  the  popular 
enthusiasm  seemed  turned  into  suspicion,  the  com- 
mon man  distrusted  the  League  because  it  was  so 
indifferent  to  the  widespread  misery  and  starva- 
tion of  the  world;  because  In  point  of  fact  It  did 
not  end  war  and  was  so  slow  to  repair  its  ravages 
and  to  return  its  remote  prisoners;  because  It  so 
cautiously  refused  to  become  the  tentative  instru- 
ment of  the  longed  for  new  age.  Certainly  Its 
constitution  and  early  pronouncements  were  disap- 
pointing. During  the  first  months  of  Its  existence 
the  League  of  Nations,  apparently  Ignoring  the 
social  conditions  of  Europe  and  lacking  the  incen- 
tives which  arise  from  developing  economic  re- 
sources had  fallen  back  upon  the  political  concepts 
of  the  1 8th  century,  more  abstractly  noble  than 
our  own  perhaps,  but  frankly  borrowed  and  there- 
fore failing  both  In  fidelity  and  endurance. 

It  may  be  necessary,  as  has  been  said,  to  turn 
the  State  and  Its  purposes  Into  an  idealistic  ab- 


202      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

stractlon  before  men  are  willing  to  fight  to  the 
death  for  it,  but  it  was  all  the  more  necessary  after 
the  war  to  come  back,  as  quickly  as  possible  to 
normal  motives,  to  the  sajtisfaction  of  simple 
human  needs.  It  was  imperative  that  there 
should  be  a  restored  balance  in  human  relation- 
ships, an  avoidance  of  all  the  dangers  which  an 
overstrained  idealism  fosters. 

This  return  should  have  been  all  the  easier  be- 
cause during  the  world  war,  literally  millions  of 
people  had  stumbled  into  a  situation  where  "those 
great  cloud  banks  of  ancestral  blindness  weighing 
down  upon  human  nature"  seemed  to  have  lifted 
for  a  moment  and  they  became  conscious  of  an  un- 
expected sense  of  relief,  as  if  they  had  returned  to 
a  state  of  primitive  well-being.  The  old  tribal 
sense  of  solidarity,  of  belonging  to  the  whole,  was 
enormously  revived  by  the  war  when  the  strain  of 
a  common  danger  brought  the  members,  not  only 
of  one  nation  but  of  many  nations,  into  a  new 
realization  of  solidarity  and  of  a  primitive  inter- 
dependence. In  the  various  armies  and  later 
among  the  civilian  populations,  two  of  men's 
earliest  instincts  which  had  existed  in  age-long 
companionship  became  widely  operative;  the  first 
might  be  called  security  from  attack,  the  second 
security  from  starvation.  Both  of  them  origin- 
ated in  tribal  habits  and  the  two  motives  are  still 
present  in  some  form  in  all  governments. 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  203 

Throughout  the  war  the  first  instinct  was  util- 
ized to  its  fullest  possibility  by  every  device  of 
propaganda  when  one  nation  after  another  was 
mobilizing  for  a  "purely  defensive  war." 

The  second,  which  might  be  called  security  from 
starvation  became  the  foundation  of  the  great  or- 
ganizations for  feeding  the  armies  and  for  con- 
serving and  distributing  food  supplies  among 
civilian  populations. 

The  suggestion  was  inevitable  that  If  the  first 
could  so  dominate  the  world  that  ten  million 
young  men  were  ready  to  spend  their  lives  in  its 
assertion,  surely  something  might  be  done  with 
the  second,  also  on  an  international  scale,  to  re- 
make destroyed  civilization. 

Throughout  their  period  of  service  in  the  army, 
a  multitude  of  young  men  experienced  a  primitive 
relief  and  healing  because  they  had  lost  that  sense 
of  separateness,  which  many  of  them  must  have 
cordially  detested,  the  consciousness  that  they 
were  living  differently  from  the  mass  of  their  fel- 
lows. As  he  came  home,  one  returned  soldier 
after  another  trying  to  explain  why  he  found  it 
hard  to  settle  back  into  his  previous  life,  ex- 
pressed more  or  less  coherently  that  he  missed  the 
sense  of  comradeship,  of  belonging  to  a  mass  of 
men.  Doubtless  the  moment  of  attack,  of  danger 
shared  In  such  wise  that  the  life  of  each  man  was 
absolutely  dependent  upon  his  comrade's  courage 


204      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

and  steadfastness,  were  the  moments  of  his  high- 
est consciousness  of  solidarity,  but  on  the  other 
hand  he  must  have  caught  an  expression  of  it  at 
other  times.  The  soldier  knew,  that  as  a  mere 
incident  to  his  great  cause,  he  was  being  fed  and 
billeted,  and  the  sharing  of  such  fare  as  the  army 
afforded  in  simple  comradeship,  doubtless  also 
gave  him  a  sense  of  absolute  unity.  Although  the 
returned  men  did  not  talk  very  freely  of  their  ex- 
periences, one  gradually  confirmed  what  the  news- 
papers and  magazines  were  then  reporting,  that 
the  returned  soldiers  were  restless  and  unhappy. 
I  remember  one  Sunday  afternoon  when  Hull- 
House  gave  a  reception  to  the  members  of  the 
Hull-House  Band,  who  with  their  leader  had  been 
the  nucleus  of  the  149th  Field  Artillery  Band, 
serving  in  France  and  later  in  Coblenz,  that  the 
young  men,  obviously  glad  to  be  at  home,  were  yet 
curiously  ill-adjusted  to  the  old  conditions.  They 
haltingly  described  the  enthusiasm  of  mass  action, 
the  unquestioning  comradeship  of  identical  aims 
which  army  experiences  had  brought  them. 

Throughout  the  war  something  of  the  same  en- 
thusiasm had  come  to  be  developed  in  regard  to 
feeding  the  world.  It  also  became  unnatural  for 
an  individual  to  stand  outside  of  the  wide-spread 
effort  to  avert  starvation.  He  was  overwhelmed 
with  a  sense  of  mal-adjustment,  of  positive  wrong- 
doing if  he  stressed  at  that  moment  the  slowly  ac- 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  205 

quired  and  substitute  virtue  of  self  support,  and 
he  even  found  it  difficult  to  urge  the  familiar  ex- 
cuse of  family  obligation  which  had  for  so  long  a 
time  been  considered  adequate. 

This  combination  of  sub-conscious  memories 
and  a  keen  realization  of  present  day  needs,  over- 
whelmed many  civilians  when  the  grim  necessity 
of  feeding  millions  of  soldiers  and  of  relieving  the 
bitter  hunger  of  entire  populations  in  remote 
countries,  was  constantly  with  them.  The  neces- 
sity for  rationing  stirred  that  comradeship  which 
is  expressed  by  a  common  table,  and  also  healed  a 
galling  consciousness  on  the  part  of  many  people 
that  they  were  consuming  too  much  while  fellow 
creatures  were  starving. 

Did  soldiers  and  civilians  alike  roll  off  a  burden 
of  conscious  difference  endured  from  ancestral 
days,  even  from  simian  groups  which  preceded  the 
human  tribes?  In  their  earlier  days  men  so  lived 
that  each  member  of  the  tribe  shared  such  food 
and  safety  as  were  possible  to  the  whole.  Does 
the  sense  of  burden  endured  since  Imply  that  in  the 
break-up  of  the  tribe  and  of  the  patriarchal  family, 
human  nature  has  lost  something  essential  to  its 
happiness?  The  great  religious  teachers  may 
have  attempted  to  restore  it  when  they  have 
preached  the  doctrine  of  sharing  the  life  of  the 
meanest  and  of  renouncing  all  until  the  man  at 
the  bottom  is  fed. 


2o6     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

For  the  moment,  at  least,  two  of  the  old  tribal 
virtues  were  in  the  ascendancy  and  the  fascination 
of  exercising  them  was  expressed  equally  by  the 
Red  Cross  worker  who  felt  as  if  she  "had  never 
really  lived  before"  and  actually  dreaded  to  re- 
sume her  pre-war  existence,  and  the  returned  sol- 
dier who  had  discovered  such  a  genuine  comrade- 
ship that  he  pronounced  the  old  college  esprit  de 
corps  tame  by  contrast. 

Human  nature,  in  spite  of  its  marvelous  adapt- 
ability, has  never  quite  fitted  its  back  to  the  moral 
strain  involved  in  the  knowledge  that  fellow 
creatures  are  starving.  In  one  generation  this 
strain  subsides  to  an  uneasy  sense  of  moral  dis- 
comfort, in  another  it  rises  to  a  consciousness  of 
moral  obliquity;  it  has  lain  at  the  basis  of  many 
religious  communities  and  social  experiments,  and 
in  our  own  generation  is  finding  extreme  expres- 
sion in  governmental  communism.  In  the  face  of 
the  widespread  famine,  following  the  devastation 
of  war,  it  was  inevitable  that  those  political  and 
social  institutions  which  prevented  the  adequate 
production  and  distribution  of  food  should  be 
sharply  challenged.  Hungry  men  asked  them- 
selves why  such  a  situation  should  exist,  when  the 
world  was  capable  of  producing  a  sufficient  food 
supply.  We  forgot  not  only  that  the  world  itself 
had  been  profoundly  modified  by  the  war,  but  that 
the  minds  which  appraise  it  had  also  been  repolar- 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  207 

ized  as  they  were  forced  to  look  at  life  from  the 
point  of  view  of  primitive  human  needs. 

To  different  groups  of  men  all  over  the  world 
therefore  the  time  had  apparently  now  come  to 
make  certain  that  all  human  creatures  should  be 
insured  against  death  by  starvation.  They  did 
not  so  much  follow  the  religious  command  as  a 
primitive  instinct  to  feed  the  hungry,  although  in 
a  sense  these  economic  experiments  of  our  own 
time  are  but  the  counterpart  of  the  religious  ex- 
periments of  another  age. 

During  the  first  months  of  so-called  peace  when 
everywhere  in  Europe  the  advantage  shifted  from 
the  industrial  town  to  the  food-producing  country, 
it  seemed  reasonable  to  believe  that  the  existing 
governments,  from  their  war  experiences  in  the 
increased  production  and  distribution  of  foods, 
might  use  the  training  of  war  to  meet  the  great 
underlying  demand  reasonably  and  quickly.  In 
point  of  fact,  during  the  first  year  after  the  war, 
five  European  cabinets  fell,  due  largely  to  the 
grinding  poverty  resulting  from  the  prolonged 
war.  Two  of  these  governments  fell  avowedly 
over  the  sudden  rise  in  the  price  of  bread  which 
had  been  subsidized  and  sold  at  a  fraction  of  its 
cost. 

The  demand  for  food  was  recognized  and  ac- 
knowledged as  in  a  great  measure  valid,  but  it  was 
being  met   in   piecemeal    fashion   while    a   much 


2o8     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

needed  change  in  the  world's  affairs  threatened  to 
occur  under  the  leadership  of  men  driven  desper- 
ate by  hunger.  In  point  of  fact,  the  demand  could 
only  be  met  adequately  if  the  situation  were 
treated  on  an  international  basis_,  the  nations  work- 
ing together  whole-heartedly  to  fulfill  a  world  ob- 
ligation. If  from  the  very  first  the  League  of 
Nations  could  have  performed  an  act  of  faith 
which  marked  it  at  once  as  the  instrument  of  a 
new  era,  if  it  had  evinced  the  daring  to  meet  new 
demands  which  could  have  been  met  in  no  other 
way,  then,  and  then  only  would  it  have  become  the 
necessary  instrumentality  to  carry  on  the  enlarged 
life  of  the  world  and  would  have  been  recognized 
as  indispensable. 

Certain  it  is  that  for  two  years  after  the  war 
the  League  of  Nations  was  in  dire  need  of  an 
overmastering  motive  forcing  it  to  function  and  to 
justify  itself  to  an  expectant  world,  even  to  endear 
itself  to  its  own  adherents.  As  the  war  had 
demonstrated  how  much  stronger  is  the  instinct 
of  self-defense  than  any  motives  for  a  purely 
private  good,  so  one  dreamed  that  the  period  of 
commercial  depression  following  the  war  might 
make  clear  the  necessity  for  an  appeal  to  the  much 
wider  and  prof ounder  instinct  responsible  for  con- 
serving human  life. 

In  the  first  years  after  the  cessation  of  the  great 
war  there  was  all  over  the  world  a  sense  of  loss  in 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  209 

motive  power,  the  consciousness  that  there  was  no 
driving  force  equal  to  that  furnished  by  the  hero- 
ism and  self-sacrifice  so  lately  demanded.  The 
great  principles  embodied  in  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, rational  and  even  appealing  though  they 
were,  grew  vague  in  men's  minds  because  it  was 
difficult  to  make  them  objective.  There  seemed 
no  motive  for  their  immediate  utilization.  But 
what  could  have  afforded  a  more  primitive,  genu- 
ine and  abiding  motive  than  feeding  the  peoples  of 
the  earth  on  an  international  scale,  utihzing  all 
the  courage  and  self-sacrifice  evolved  by  the  war. 
All  that  international  administration  which  per- 
formed such  miracles  of  production  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war  was  defined  by  the  British  Labor 
Party  at  its  annual  conference  in  1 9 1 9  as  "a  world- 
government  actually  in  being  which  should  be 
made  the  beginnings  of  a  constructive  international 
society." 

The  British  Labor  Party,  therefore,  recom- 
mended three  concrete  measures  apart  from  the 
revision  of  the  Peace  Treaty,  as  follows: 

1.  A  complete  raising  of  the  blockade 
EVERYWHERE,  in  PRACTICE  as  well  as  IN 

NAME. 

2.  Granting  CREDITS  to  enemy  and  to  liber- 
ated countries  alike,  to  enable  them  to  obtain  food 
and  raw  materials  sufficient  to  put  them  in  a  posi- 
tion where  they  can  begin  to  help  themselves. 


2IO     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

3.  Measures  for  the  special  relief  of  children 
EVERYWHERE,  without  regard  to  the  political 
allegiance  of  their  parents. 

How  simple  and  adequate  these  three  recom- 
mendations were  and  yet  how  far-reaching  in  their 
consequences !  They  would  first  of  all  have  com- 
pelled the  promoters  of  the  League  to  drop  the 
1 8th  century  phrases  in  which  diplomatic  inter- 
course is  conducted,  and  to  substitute  plain  eco- 
nomic terms  fitted  to  the  matter  in  hand.  Such  a 
course  would  have  forced  them  to  an  immediate 
discussion  of  credit  for  reconstruction  purposes, 
the  need  of  an  internationally  guaranteed  loan, 
the  function  of  a  recognized  international  Eco- 
nomic Council  for  the  control  of  food  stuffs  and 
raw  material,  the  world-wide  fuel  shortage,  the 
effect  of  mal-nutrition  on  powers  of  production, 
the  irreparable  results  of  "hunger  oedema." 

The  situation  presented  material  for  that  gen- 
uine and  straightforward  statesmanship  which  was 
absolutely  essential  to  the  feeding  of  Europe's 
hungry  children.  An  atmosphere  of  discussion 
and  fiery  knowledge  of  current  conditions  as  re- 
vealed by  war,  once  established,  the  promoters  of 
the  League  would  experience  "the  zeal,  the  tingle, 
the  excitement  of  reality"  which  the  League  so 
sadly  lacked.     The  promoters  of  the  League  had 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  211 

unhappily  assumed  that  the  rights  of  the  League 
are  anterior  to  and  independent  of  its  functioning, 
forgetting  that  men  are  instinctively  wary  in  ac- 
cepting at  their  face  value  high-sounding  claims 
which  cannot  justify  themselves  by  achievement, 
and  that  in  the  long  run  "authority  must  go  with 
function."  They  also  ignored  the  fact  that  the 
stimuli  they  were  utilizing  failed  to  evoke  an 
adequate  response  for  this  advanced  form  of 
human  effort. 

The  adherents  of  the  League  often  spoke  as  if 
they  were  defending  a  too  radical  document 
whereas  it  probably  failed  to  command  wide- 
spread confidence  because  it  was  not  radical 
enough,  because  it  clung  in  practice  at  least  to  the 
old  self-convicted  diplomacy.  But  the  common 
man  in  a  score  of  nations  could  not  forget  that  this 
diplomacy  had  failed  to  avert  a  war  responsible 
for  the  death  of  ten  million  soldiers,  as  many 
more  civilians,  with  the  loss  of  an  unestimated 
amount  of  civilization  goods,  and  that  all  the  re- 
volutionary governments  since  the  world  began 
could  not  be  charged  with  a  more  ghastly  toll  of 
human  life  and  with  a  heavier  destruction  of 
property. 

During  those  months  of  uncertainty  and  anx- 
iety the  governments  responsible  for  the  devasta- 
tions of  a  world  war  were  unaccountably  timid  In 
undertaking  restoration  on  the  same  scale,  and 


212      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

persistently  hesitated  to  discharge  their  obvious 
obligations. 

It  was  self-evident  that  if  the  League  refused 
to  become  the  instrument  of  a  new  order,  all  the 
difficult  problems  resulting,  at  least  in  their  present 
acute  form,  from  a  world  war,  would  be  turned 
over  to  those  who  must  advocate  revolution  in 
order  to  obtain  the  satisfaction  of  acknowledged 
human  needs.  It  was  deplorable  that  this  great 
human  experiment  should  be  entrusted  solely  to 
those  who  must  appeal  to  the  desperate  need  of 
the  hungry  to  feed  themselves,  whereas  this  de- 
mand, in  its  various  aspects  seemed  to  afford  a 
great  controlling  motive  in  the  world  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  as  political  democracy,  as  religious 
freedom,  had  moved  the  world  at  other  times. 

There  were  many  occasions  during  the  first  year 
of  the  League's  existence  when  the  necessity  for 
such  action  was  fairly  forced  upon  its  attention. 

At  Paris,  in  May,  1920,  when  the  association  of 
Red  Cross  societies  was  organized,  committing 
itself  to  the  fight  against  tuberculosis,  to  a  well 
considered  program  of  Child  Welfare  and  to 
other  humanitarian  measures  for  devastated 
Europe,  a  letter  was  received  from  Mr.  Balfour 
on  behalf  of  the  League  of  Nations.  He  made 
an  eloquent  appeal  for  succor  against  the  disease 
afflicting  the  war  worn  and  underfed  populations 
of  central  and  western  Europe.     The  Association 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  213 

of  Red  Cross  Societies  replied  that  it  was  the 
starving  man  who  most  readily  contracts  and 
spreads  disease,  and  that  only  if  the  Allied  gov- 
ernments supplied  loans  to  these  unhappy  nations 
could  food  and  medical  supplies  be  secured;  that 
according  to  a  report  made  recently  to  them, 
"  'There  were  found  everywhere  never-ending 
vicious  circles  of  political  paradox  and  economic 
complication,  with  consequent  paralysis  of  na- 
tional life  and  industry.'  "  This  diagnosis  gave  a 
clue  to  the  situation,  indicating  that  the  League  of 
Nations  must  abandon  its  political  treatment  of 
war  worn  Europe  and  consider  the  starving  people 
as  its  own  concrete  problem.  The  recognition  of 
this  obvious  moral  obligation  and  a  generous  at- 
tempt to  fulfill  it,  even  to  the  point  if  need  be  of 
losing  the  life  of  the  League,  might  have  resulted 
in  the  one  line  of  action  which  would  most  quickly 
have  saved  it.  If  the  coal,  the  iron,  the  oil  and 
above  all  the  grain  had  been  distributed  under  in- 
ternational control  from  the  first  day  of  the 
armistice,  Europe  might  have  escaped  the  starva- 
tion from  which  she  suffered  for  months.  The 
League  could  actually  have  laid  the  foundations 
of  that  type  of  government  towards  which  the 
world  is  striving  and  in  which  it  is  so  persistently 
experimenting. 

The  great  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  an 
earlier  realization  of  this  dream  of  a  League  of 


214      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Peace  has  been  what  is  the  crux  of  its  actual  sur- 
vival now,  the  difficulty  In  interpreting  it  to  the 
understanding  of  the  common  man,  grounding  it 
in  his  affections,  appealing  to  his  love  for  human 
kind.  To  such  men,  who  after  all  compose  the 
bulk  of  the  citizens  in  every  nation  participating 
in  the  League,  the  abstract  politics  of  it  make  little 
appeal,  although  they  would  gladly  contribute 
their  utmost  to  feed  the  starving.  Two  and  a 
half  million  French  trade  unionists  regularly  taxed 
themselves  for  the  children  of  Austria;  the  British 
Labor  Party  insisted  that  the  British  foreign 
policy  should  rest  "upon  a  humane  basis,  really 
caring  for  all  mankind,  including  colored  men, 
women  and  children;"  and  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  declared  its  readiness  to  "give  a 
mighty  service  In  a  common  effort  for  all  human 
kind."  So  far  as  the  working  man  in  any  country 
expressed  himself,  it  was  always  in  this  direction. 
Perhaps  it  was  unfair  to  expect  so  much  In  the 
first  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  League, 
when  it  was  crippled  by  the  uncertain  attitude  of 
the  United  States.  But  all  the  more  its  friends 
longed  to  find,  or  rather  to  release,  some  basic 
human  emotion  which  should  bring  together  men 
of  good-will  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  A 
close  observer  of  the  Paris  Peace  Conference  had 
said  that  It  was  an  extraordinary  fact  that  starv- 
ing Europe  was  the  one  subject  upon  which  it  had 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  215 

been  impossible  to  engage  the  attention  of  the 
"big  four"  throughout  their  long  deliberations. 
Yet  in  the  popular  discussions  of  the  functions  of 
the  League  the  feeding  of  the  people  appeared 
constantly  like  an  unhappy  ghost  that  would  not 
down. 

While  the  first  year  of  the  League  held  much 
that  was  discouraging  for  its  advocates,  the  firs? 
meeting  of  the  Assembly  convened  in  Geneva  in 
November,  1920,  resolved  certain  doubts  and  re- 
moved certain  inhibitions  from  the  minds  of  many 
of  us.  The  Assembly  demonstrated  that  after 
all  it  was  possible  for  representatives  from  the 
nations  of  the  earth  to  get  together  in  order  to  dis- 
cuss openly,  freely,  kindly  for  the  most  part,  and 
even  unselfishly,  the  genuine  needs  of  the  world. 
In  spite  of  the  special  position  of  the  Great 
Powers,  this  meeting  of  the  Assembly  had  so  in- 
creased the  moral  prestige  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions that  it  was  reasonable  to  believe  that  an  ar- 
ticulate world-opinion  would  eventually  remove 
the  treaty  entanglements  which  threatened  to 
frustrate  the  very  objects  of  the  League.  The 
small  nations,  represented  by  such  men  as  Nansen 
and  Branting,  not  by  insistence  on  the  doctrine  of 
the  sovereignty  and  equality  of  states,  but  through 
sheer  devotion  to  world  interests,  were  making  the 
League  effective  and  certainly  more  democratic. 
Perhaps  these  representatives  were   acting,   not 


2i6     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

only  from  their  own  preferences  or  even  convict- 
ions, but  also  from  the  social  impact  upon  them, 
from  the  momentum  of  life  itself. 

In  many  ways  the  first  meeting  of  the  Assembly 
had  been  like  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  and  it 
seemed  possible  that  the  public  discussion,  the 
good-will,  and  the  international  concern,  must 
eventually  affect  the  European  situation. 

During  the  following  year  the  League  of  Na- 
tions itself  inaugurated  and  carried  out  many 
measures  which  might  be  designated  as  purely 
humanitarian.  In  the  "Report  to  the  Second 
Assembly  of  the  League  on  the  Work  of  the 
Council  and  on  the  measures  taken  to  execute  the 
decisions  of  the  First  Assembly"  in  Geneva  on 
September  7th,  192 1,  under  the  heading  of  Gen- 
eral International  Activities  of  the  League  was 
the  following  list : 

C.  I.  The  repatriation  of  prisoners. 

C.  2.  The  relief  of  Russian  refugees. 

C.  3.  General  relief  work  in  Europe. 

C.  4.  The  protection  of  children. 

Under  "the  measures  taken  in  execution  of  the 
resolutions  and  recommendation  of  the  As- 
sembly," in  addition  to  the  reports  of  the  Health 
Organizations,  were  others  such  as  the  campaign 
against  typhus  in  Eastern  Europe,  and  the  relief 
of  children  in  countries  affected  by  the  war.   From 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  217 

one  aspect  these  activities  were  all  in  the  nature 
of  repairing  the  ravages  of  the  Great  War,  but 
it  was  obvious  that  further  undertakings  of  the 
League  must  be  greatly  influenced  and  directed  by 
these  early  human  efforts. 

The  Liternational  Labor  Organization,  from 
the  first  such  a  hopeful  part  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, had  just  concluded  as  we  reached  Geneva  in 
August  1 92 1,  a  conference  upon  immigration  and 
possible  protective  measures  which  the  present 
situation  demanded.  For  many  years  I  had  been 
a  Vice  President  of  the  American  Branch  of  the 
International  Association  for  Labour  Legislation 
and  had  learned  only  too  well  how  difficult  it  was 
to  secure  equality  of  conditions  for  the  labor  of 
immigrants.  The  most  touching  interviews  I 
have  ever  had  upon  the  League  of  Nations  had 
been  with  simple  immigrants  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Hull-House,  who  had  many  times  expressed 
the  hope  that  the  League  might  afford  some  ade- 
quate protection  to  migratory  workmen,  to  the 
Italian  for  instance,  who  begins  harvesting  the 
crops  south  of  the  equator  and,  following  the 
ripening  grain  through  one  country  after  another, 
finally  arrives  in  Manitoba  or  the  Dakotas.  He 
often  finds  himself  far  from  consular  offices,  en- 
counters untold  difficulties,  sometimes  falling  into 
absolute  peonage. 

It  was  interesting  to  have   the  International 


2i8      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Labour  Organization  declare  in  its  report  that  the 
two  great  "peoples"  who  had  first  recognized  the 
large  part  the  Office  might  play  in  conciliation  and 
protection  were  ( i )  the  Shipowners  and  Seamen, 
as  had  been  shown  by  the  conference  at  Genoa, 
and  (2)  "the  immense  people  of  immigrants,  the 
masses  who,  uprooted  from  their  homelands,  ask 
for  some  measure  of  security  and  protection  ap- 
plicable to  all  countries  and  supervised  by  an  in- 
ternational authority." 

There  was  something  very  reassuring  in  this 
plain  dealing  with  homely  problems  with  which  I 
had  been  so  long  familiar.  I  had  always  been 
ready  to  admit  that  "the  solemn  declaration  of 
principles  which  serve  to  express  the  unanimity  of 
the  aspirations  of  humanity  have  immense  value," 
but  this  was  something  more  concrete,  as  were 
other  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Office  to  defend 
labor  throughout  the  world  and  to  push  forward 
adequate  legislation  on  their  behalf. 

In  the  reaction,  which  had  gained  such  headway 
during  the  two  years  of  peace,  against  the  gener- 
ous hopes  for  a  better  world  order  the  Interna- 
tional Labour  Organization  as  well  as  the  League 
of  Nations  was  encountering  all  the  hazards  of  a 
great  social  experiment.  We  could  but  hope  that 
the  former  might  gain  some  backing  from  the  in- 
ternational congress,  to  be  held  in  October,  192 1, 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  219 

of   working  women,   bringing   their   enthusiasms 
and  achievements  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 

The  food  challenge  was  put  up  fairly  and 
squarely  to  the  Second  meeting  of  the  Assembly 
of  the  League  of  Nations  by  the  Russian  famine 
due  to  the  prolonged  drought  of  192 1.  A  meet- 
ing to  consider  the  emergency  had  been  called  in 
Geneva  in  August,  under  the  joint  auspices  of  the 
International  Red  Cross  and  the  League  of  Red 
Cross  Societies.  We  were  able  to  send  a  repre- 
sentative to  it  from  our  Woman's  International 
League  almost  directly  from  our  Third  Interna- 
tional Congress  in  Vienna.  There  was  every  pos- 
sibility for  using  the  dire  situation  in  Russia  for 
political  ends,  both  by  the  Soviet  Government 
and  by  those  offering  rehef.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  was  a  chance  that  these  millions  of  starving 
people,  simply  because  their  need  was  so  colossal 
that  any  other  agency  would  be  pitifully  inade- 
quate, would  receive  help  directly  from  many  gov- 
ernments, united  in  a  mission  of  good-will.  It  was 
a  situation  which  might  turn  men's  minds  from 
war  and  a  disastrous  peace  to  great  and  simple 
human  issues;  in  such  an  enterprise  the  govern- 
ments would  "realize  the  failure  of  national  co- 
ercive power  for  indispensable  ends  like  food  for 
the  people,"  they  would  come  to  a  cooperation 
born  of  the  failure  of  force. 


220     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Dr.  Fridjof  Nansen,  appointed  high  commis- 
sioner at  the  Red  Cross  meeting  in  August,  after  a 
survey  of  the  Russian  Famine  regions  returned  to 
Geneva  for  the  opening  of  the  Assembly  on 
September  5th,  in  which  he  represented  Norway, 
with  a  preliminary  report  of  Russian  conditions. 
He  made  a  noble  plea,  which  I  was  privileged  to 
hear,  that  the  delegates  in  the  Assembly  should 
urge  upon  their  governments  national  loans  which 
should  be  adequate  to  furnish  the  gigantic  sums 
necessary  to  relieve  twenty-five  million  starving 
people. 

As  I  listened  to  this  touching  appeal  on  behalf 
of  the  helpless  I  was  stirred  to  a  new  hope  for  the 
League.  I  believed  that,  although  it  may  take 
years  to  popularize  the  principles  of  international 
cooperation,  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  citizens  of 
all  the  nations  have  already  received  much  instruc- 
tion in  world-religions.  To  feed  the  hungry  on  an 
international  scale  might  result  not  only  in  saving 
the  League  but  in  that  world-wide  religious  re- 
vival which,  in  spite  of  many  predictions  during 
and  since  the  war,  had  as  yet  failed  to  come.  It 
was  evident  in  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly  that 
Dr.  Nansen  had  the  powerful  backing  of  the 
British  delegates  as  well  as  others,  and  it  was 
therefore  a  matter  for  unexpected  as  well  as  for 
bitter  disappointment  when  his  plea  was  finally 


A  FOOD  CHALLENGE  221 

denied.  This  denial  was  made  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  the  Russian  peasants,  In  the  center  of 
the  famine  district,  although  starving,  piously  ab- 
stained from  eating  the  seed  grain  and  said  to  each 
other  as  they  scattered  it  over  the  ground  for  their 
crop  of  winter  wheat;  "We  must  sow  the  grain 
although  we  shall  not  live  to  see  It  sprout." 

Did  the  delegates  in  the  Assembly  still  retain 
the  national  grievances  and  animosities  so  para- 
mount when  the  League  of  Nations  was  organized 
In  Paris  or  were  they  dominated  by  a  fear  and 
hatred  of  Bolshevism  and  a  panic  lest  the  feeding 
of  Russian  peasants  should  In  some  wise  aid  the 
purposes  of  Lenine's  government?  Again  I  re- 
flected that  these  men  of  the  Assembly,  as  other 
men,  were  still  held  apart  by  suspicion  and  fear, 
which  could  only  be  quenched  by  motives  lying 
deeper  than  those  responsible  for  their  sense  of 
estrangement. 

This  sense  of  human  solidarity  for  the  moment 
seemed  most  readily  obtained  by  men  leading 
lives  of  humble  toil  and  self-denial,  as  if  they 
might  teach  a  war-weary  world  that  the  religious 
revival  which  alone  would  be  able  to  fuse  together 
the  hostile  nations,  could  never  occur  unless  there 
were  first  a  conviction  of  sin,  a  repentance  for 
the  war  Itself !  As  long  as  men  contended  that 
the  war  was  "necessary"  or  "inevitable"  the  world 


222      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

could  not  hope  for  a  manifestation  of  that  re- 
ligious impulse  which  feeds  men  solely  and  only 
because  they  are  hungry. 

A  genuine  Society  of  Nations  may  finally  be 
evolved  by  millions  of  earth's  humblest  toilers, 
whose  lives  are  consumed  in  securing  the  daily 
needs  of  existence  for  themselves  and  their 
families.  They  go  stumbling  towards  the  light  of 
better  international  relations,  driven  forward 
because  "Man  is  constantly  seeking  a  new  and 
finer  adjustment  between  his  inner  emotional  de- 
mands and  the  practical  arrafigements  of  the 
world  in  which  he  lives." 


CHAPTER  XL 

IN  EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE 

Our  Third  International  Congress  was  held  at 
Vienna  in  July,  1921,  almost  exactly  two  years 
after  the  Peace  of  Versailles  had  been  signed. 
This  third  Congress  was  of  necessity  unlike  the 
other  two  in  tension  and  temper  and  in  some  re- 
spects more  difficult.  At  the  first  one,  held  at 
The  Hague  in  19 15,  women  came  together  not 
only  to  make  a  protest  against  war  but  to 
present  suggestions  for  consideration  at  the  final 
Peace  Conference,  which,  as  no  one  could  forsee 
the  duration  of  the  war,  everyone  then  believed 
might  be  held  within  a  few  months.  The  second 
Congress  was  held  in  Zurich  in  19 19  and,  while 
there  was  open  disappointment  over  the  terms  of 
the  Treaty,  the  Peace  Commission  was  still  sitting 
in  Paris,  and  it  was  believed  not  only  that  the 
terms  would  be  modified  but  that  the  constitution 
of  the  League  of  Nations  would  be  developed  and 
ennobled.  Both  of  the  earlier  Congresses  there- 
fore were  hopeful  in  the  sense  that  the  better  in- 
ternational relationships  which  were  widely  sup- 
posed to  be  attained  at  the  end  of  the  war,  were 

223 


224     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

still  in  the  making.     The  third  Congress  was  con- 
vened in  Vienna,  which,  as  we  realized,  had  suf- 
fered bitterly  both  from  the  war  and  the  terms  of 
Peace.      The   women   from   the   thirty  countries 
represented  there  had  been  sorely  disillusioned  by 
their  experiences  during  the  two  years  of  peace, 
and  each  group  inevitably  reflected  something  of 
the  hopelessness  and  confusion  which  had  char- 
acterized Europe  since  the  war.       Nevertheless 
these  groups  of  women  were  united  in  one  thing. 
They   all   alike  had  come   to   realize  that   every 
crusade,  every  beginning  of  social  change,  must 
start  from  small  numbers  of  people  convinced  of 
the  righteousness  of  a  cause;  that  the  coming  to- 
gether of  convinced  groups  is  a  natural  process 
of  growth.      Our  groups  had  come  together  in 
Vienna  hoping  to  receive  the  momentum  and  sense 
of  validity  which  results  from  encountering  like- 
minded  people  from  other  countries  and  to  tell 
each  other  how  far  we  had  been  able  to  translate 
conviction  into  action.     The  desire  to  perform  the 
office  of  reconciliation,  to  bring  something  of  heal- 
ing to  the  confused  situation,  and  to  give  an  im- 
pulse towards  more  normal  relations  between  dif- 
fering nations,  races  and  classes,  was  evident  from 
the  first  meeting  of  the  Congress.       This  latter 
was  registered  in  the  various  proposals,  such  as 
that  founded  upon  experiences  of  the  last  year, 
that  peace  missions  composed  of  women  of  differ- 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    225 

ent  nations  should  visit  the  borders  still  in  a  dis- 
turbed condition  and  also  the  countries  in  which 
war  had  never  really  ceased. 

There  was  constant  evidence  that  the  food 
blockade  maintained  in  some  instances  long  after 
the  war,  had  outraged  a  primitive  instinct  of 
women  almost  more  than  the  military  operations 
themselves  had  done.  Women  had  felt  an  actual 
repulsion  against  the  slow  starvation,  the  general 
lowering  in  the  health  and  resistance  of  entire 
populations,  the  anguish  of  the  millions  of 
mothers  who  could  not  fulfill  the  primitive  obliga- 
tion of  keeping  their  children  alive.  There  was  a 
certain  sternness  of  attitude  concerning  political 
conditions  which  so  wretchedly  affected  woman's 
age-long  business  of  nurturing  children,  as  if 
women  had  realized  as  never  before  what  war 
means. 

In  spite  of  the  pressure  of  these  questions  the 
first  public  meeting  was  a  memorial  to  Baroness 
von  Suttner,  whose  remarkable  book  "Ground 
Arms"  had  had  a  wide  reading  rivalled  by  no 
other  book  perhaps,  save  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin." 
The  book  had  been  an  important  factor  in  the 
history  of  European  militarism  and  its  Austrian 
author  had  been  honored  in  many  lands. 

The  first  business  sessions  of  the  Congress  con- 
cerned themselves  with  the  age-old  question  of 
education.       An  extraordinarily  illuminating  di- 


226      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

vergence  developed  from  the  conflicting  experi- 
ence of  Germany  and  Austria;  spealcers  from  Ger- 
many attributed  Germany's  readiness  for  war 
largely  to  their  own  state  monopoly  of  education, 
which  had,  for  fifty  years,  consistently  fostered 
militarism.  Austrian  women,  on  the  contrary,  in 
whose  country  one  of  the  most  precious  gains  of 
the  revolution  is  the  transfer  of  the  schools  from 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  the  control  of  the  secu- 
larized state,  overflowed  with  untried  confidence 
in  their  newly  acquired  power  as  citizens.  Among 
them  was  the  woman  member  of  the  National 
Department  of  Education.  This  discussion  was 
but  one  of  many  indications  that  the  delegates 
represented  nations  in  various  stages  of  political 
and  social  development.  At  moments  we  seemed 
to  be  discussing  the  same  question  from  the  ex- 
periences of  its  decadent  end  and  its  promising  be- 
ginnings, as  if  the  delegates  to  the  Congress  repre- 
sented the  point  of  view  both  of  the  university  and 
of  the  kindergarten.  Partly  because  the  meeting 
was  held  in  Vienna,  and  partly  because  the  Inter- 
national Secretary,  Miss  Balch,  had  recently  trav- 
elled in  the  Balkan  States  in  the  interests  of  our 
League,  a  large  number  of  women  came  from  the 
immediate  territory.  Miss  Balch,  years  before 
when  collecting  material  for  her  book  entitled 
"Our  Slavic  Fellowcitizens,"  had  made  many 
friends  in  Southeastern  Europe  and  because  they 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    227 

appreciated  the  unusual  insight  with  which  she 
had  portrayed  the  situation  then,  they  were 
ready  to  trust  her  again.  Some  of  them,  from 
Greece,  Bulgaria,  Poland  and  the  Ukraine,  repre- 
sented organized  branches  of  the  League.  Other 
groups  were  from  "minorities"  in  the  newly  an- 
nexed territories,  who  frankly  came  in  search  of 
aid,  hoping  to  gain  some  international  recognition 
and  support  from  even  so  small  and  unofficial  a 
Congress  as  our  own.  There  was  an  interesting 
group  from  Croatia,  whose  reports  of  the  pacifist 
movement  among  the  Croatian  peasants  were  most 
impressive,  especially  one  given  by  the  daughter 
of  Radek,  the  leader  of  the  movement  he  be- 
lieved destined  to  reassert  the  non-resistant  char- 
acter of  the  Slav.  The  Saxon  group  from  the 
part  of  Transylvania  which  had  lately  been  given 
over  to  Roumania,  reported  religious  difficulties; 
the  relation  between  Bulgaria  and  Greece  with 
reference  to  the  transfer  of  nationalities  under  the 
League  of  Nations  plan  was  set  forth  by  women 
from  both  countries.  At  the  evening  meeting 
these  various  minorities,  fourteen  in  all,  stated 
their  own  cases  and  resolutions  were  presented 
only  after  the  substance  had  been  agreed  upon  by 
representatives  of  both  nations  Involved.  Thus 
the  Polish  and  German  women  agreed  on  a  resolu- 
tion about  Upper  Silesia,  the  English  and  Irish 
delegates  on  the  Irish  question.       Touching  ad- 


228     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

dresses  were  made  for  the  Armenians,  for  the 
Zionists  and,  by  a  colored  woman  from  the  United 
States,  on  behalf  of  her  own  people  who  were  not 
nominally  a  minority,  although  they  often  suffered 
as  such.  This  evening's  program  cohered  with 
the  discussion:  "How  can  a  population,  feeling 
that  it  is  suffering  from  injustice,  strive  to  right  its 
wrongs  without  violence?"  There  was  a  very 
sympathetic  report  of  the  Ghandi  movement  given 
by  Miss  Picton  Turberville,  who  had  lived  in 
India  and  who  preached  the  following  Sunday  for 
our  Congress  In  the  English  Church  in  Vienna. 
We  were  also  told  of  a  remarkable  group  center- 
ing about  Bilthoven  In  Holland,  with  some  detail 
as  to  how  Norway  and  Sweden  had  accomplished 
their  separation  without  bloodshed,  and  of  the 
earlier  non-resistant  phases  of  the  Sinn  Fein 
movement.  Nearly  every  country  represented  by 
a  delegation  brought  some  report  of  the  "non- 
military  movement,"  in  which  large  or  smaller 
numbers  of  their  fellow-citizens  had  pledged 
themselves  to  take  no  part  in  war  or  in  its  pre- 
paration. Four  of  our  own  branches,  all  of  them 
in  countries  recently  at  war,  had  made  this  prom- 
ise of  non-cooperation  in  war  a  test  of  member- 
ship In  the  national  organizations. 

This  was  part  of  the  revolt  against  the  pre- 
cautions the  governments  of  Europe  were  every- 
where taking  In  regard  to  pacifist  teaching."  Even 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    229 

neutral  Switzerland  had  passed  a  measure  in  its 
Assembly,  which  was  still  however  to  be  submitted 
to  a  referendum  of  the  people,  that  anyone  teach- 
ing a  man  of  military  age  in  such  wise  as  to  lessen 
his  enthusiasm  for  military  service  should  be  liable 
to  three  years'  imprisonment.  A  well-known 
theological  professor  in  a  Swiss  University  had  re- 
signed on  the  ground  that  he  could  no  longer  ex- 
pound the  doctrines  of  the  New  Testament  to  the 
men  in  his  classes.  Holland  was  considering  simi- 
lar regulations,  and  even  in  those  countries  where 
universal  military  service  was  forbidden  by  the 
terms  of  the  Peace  Treaty,  as  in  Hungary  and 
Bavaria,  the  almost  military  rule  temporarily 
established  in  both  of  them  made  any  form  of' 
peace  propaganda  extremely  dangerous.  It  was 
as  if  the  war  spirit  itself  had  to  be  sustained  by 
force,  as  if  its  own  adherents  were  afraid  of  any 
open  discussion  of  its  moral  bases  and  social  im- 
plications. The  military  pafrties  seemed  more 
and  more  to  confine  their  appeal  to  "the  sense  of 
security"  and  to  use  the  old  "fear  of  attack." 
motives. 

We  had  a  brilliant  report  on  what  our  organiza- 
tion had  been  able  to  do  from  our  Geneva  head- 
quarters in  connection  with  the  League  of 
Nations.  This  report  was  accepted  with  ap- 
proval authorizing  a  continuance  of  the  same 
activity,  but  there  was  as  usual  a  minority  of  the 


230      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAIi 

delegates  who  distrusted  the  imperialistic  designs 
of  the  larger  nations,  and  yet  another  group  who 
believed  that,  while  a  useful  agency  for  many  in- 
ternational activities,  the  League  of  Nations  could 
never  secure  peace  until  the  most  basic  changes 
were  made  both  in  its  purpose  and  personnel.  So 
we  once  more  took  no  official  action  regarding  the 
League  of  Nations,  but  went  on  in  a  modus  vi- 
vendi,  allowing  the  greatest  latitude  to  our  Inter- 
national Headquarters  and  to  our  National 
Branches.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Dutch  Section 
brought  a  carefully  prepared  indictment  of  the 
construction  of  the  League  and  urged  work  for 
changes  In  the  Treaty  as  a  paramount  obligation. 
The  few  Communists  who  were  delegates  to 
the  Congress — the  word  used  in  Europe  in  a  some-* 
what  technical  sense  to  designate  the  members  of 
the  Left  in  the  Socialist  Party — were  perhaps  the 
most  discouraged  people  there,  because  their 
movement  in  Russia  and  elsewhere  had  become  so 
absolutely  militaristic.  Holding  to  their  pacifist 
principles  had  cost  them  their  standing  in  their 
own  party.  Although  they  may  have  "come 
high"  to  us  so  far  as  public  opinion  was  concerned, 
no  people  in  the  world  at  that  moment  so  needed 
the  companionship  which  pacifist  groups  might 
give  them:  In  the  eyes  of  the  bourgeoisie  them- 
selves, no  one  could  put  pacifism  into  practice 
more  beneficially  for  all  Europe.       These   few 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    231 

Communist  delegates  were  for  the  most  part 
reasonable,  but  all  of  them  were  profoundly  dis- 
couraged. 

The  resolution  which  excited  the  most  comment 
in  the  press,  and  which  apparently  aroused  that 
white  heat  of  interest  attaching  to  any  discussion, 
however  remote,  of  property  privileges,  was  in- 
troduced by  a  group  who  felt  that,  as  we  constantly 
urged  the  revolutionist  to  pacific  methods  and  de- 
nounced violence  between  the  classes  as  we  did  be- 
tween the  nations,  we  should  logically  "work  to 
awaken  and  strengthen  among  members  of  the 
possessing  classes  the  earnest  wish  to  transform 
the  economic  system  in  the  direction  of  social 
justice."  The  methods  suggested  in  the  resolu- 
tion and  voted  upon  subsequently  were  "by  means 
of  taxation,  death  duties  and  reform  in  land  laws," 
all  of  them  in  operation  in  many  of  the  countries 
represented  in  the  Congress.  The  momentary 
sense  of  panic  aroused  by  this  reasonable  discus- 
sion, was  an  indication  of  that  unrestrained  fear 
of  Bolshevism  encountered  everywhere  in  Europe. 
It  was  hard  to  determine  whether  it  was  the  idea 
itself  which  was  so  terrifying  or  the  army  of  the 
Russian  Bolshevists  threatening  to  enforce  a 
theory  regardless  of  "consent."  At  any  rate,  a 
European  public  found  it  hard  to  believe  that  any- 
thing even  remotely  connected  with  private 
property  could  be  discussed  upon  its  merits  and 


232      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

was  convinced  that  the  subject  must  have  been  In- 
troduced either  by  agents  provocateurs,  or  by  pro- 
pagandists paid  with  Russian  money.  The  war 
propaganda  had  demonstrated  to  the  world  how 
possible  it  is  "to  put  over"  an  opinion  if  enough 
ability  and  money  are  expended  and  Europeans 
thought  they  had  learned  to  detect  it.  We  un- 
doubtedly felt  for  an  instant  that  Icy  breath  of 
fear  blowing  through  Europe  from  the  mysterious 
steppes  of  Russia. 

Throughout  the  Congress  we  were  conscious 
that  peace  theories  turned  into  action  won  the  com- 
plete admiration  of  the  delegates  as  nothing  else 
did.  This  was  Instanced  when  the  Congress  was 
eloquently  addressed  by  a  Belgian  delegate, 
Madame  Lucie  Dejardin.  She  had  been  carried 
into  Germany  in  January,  19 15,  and  worked 
there  in  one  camp  after  another,  until,  developing 
tuberculosis,  she  was  invalided  to  Switzerland  in 
July,  19 18.  Upon  her  return  to  Belgium  she  had 
organized  an  association  of  those  who  had  been 
imprisoned  in  Germany,  civilians  as  well  as  re- 
turned Belgian  soldiers,  that  they  might  feed  Ger- 
man and  Austrian  children.  She  reported  to  the 
Congress  that  the  association  had  received  2,000 
of  these  children  as  guests  in  Belgium.  She  gave 
this  information  incidentally  in  the  speech  she  was 
making  to  thank  the  various  nations  represented 
there  for  what  they  had  done  for  the  relief  of  her 


{EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    233 

own  compatriots.  This  Belgian  woman  was 
{typical  of  many  women  who  had  touched  bottom 
as  it  were  in  the  valley  of  human  sorrow  and  had 
found  a  spring  of  healing  there. 

We  found  everywhere  in  Austria  the  impossible 
situation  so  often  described  as  "a  combination  of 
concrete  obstacles  with  psychological  deterrents, 
all  operating  through  a  degraded  and  constantly 
falling  currency."  The  effective  ability  in  labor, 
business,  domestic  and  intellectual  life,  had  all 
sustained  heavy  damages  through  the  war, 
through  the  blockade,  through  the  Peace  terms 
and  through  the  post-war  economic  policy.  All 
the  people  had  been  piteously  reduced  by  priva- 
tions. The  professional  and  artistic  people  had 
gradually  lowered  their  standard  of  living  to  that 
below  the  health  line.  In  addition  the  insolvency 
threatened  to  destroy  the  collective  resources  of 
culture  and  education :  ever}'where  we  were  told 
that  there  was  no  money  to  buy  books  and  periodi- 
cals for  long-established  libraries,  that  schools 
were  closing,  that  orchestras  were  forced  to  dis- 
band. The  students'  feeding  in  various  Universi- 
ties which  we  visited  both  in  Austria  and  in  the 
neighboring  states  seemed  somewhat  like  the 
students'  commons  we  are  all  accustomed  to  see 
in  endowed  institutions,  but  it  was  a  distinct  shock 
to  be  invited  to  a  luncheon  with  distinguished 
professors  who  were   also  eating  subsidized  ra- 


234     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

tions.  So  many  of  these  men  were  accepting  posts 
elsewhere  that  Austria  was  threatened  with  the 
loss  of  her  most  brilliant  scholars. 

There  were  many  forms  of  relief  throughout 
the  city  of  Vienna.  We  naturally  saw  most  of 
the  American  Relief  Administration  established 
by  Mr.  Hoover,  and  of  the  Friends'  Service  Com- 
mittee, with  which  several  Hull-House  residents 
were  identified.  The  head  of  the  latter.  Dr. 
Hilda  Clark,  from  England,  had  been  in  Vienna 
during  the  armistice  and  had  brought  back  an 
early  report  of  the  children  In  whose  behalf  she 
had  since  organized  a  large  unit  of  relief.  This 
fed  thousands  of  children  below  school  age  as 
well  as  groups  of  the  aged  In  all  classes  of  society 
who  had  poignantly  felt  that  they  had  no  right  to 
live  at  the  expense  of  food  for  the  young.  The 
Quakers  were  much  beloved  everywhere,  as  were 
other  groups  from  all  of  the  neutral,  and  many 
of  the  belligerent  countries  in  Europe  who  were 
coming  to  the  rescue  of  the  Viennese  children, 
taking  them  out  of  Austria  even  as  far  as  northern 
Sweden  that  they  might  have  better  care  and  food. 
They  were  alleviating  the  situation  in  hundreds  of 
ways  although  in  spite  of  these  united  efforts  only 
21  children  out  of  a  lOO  were  as  yet  approxi- 
mately normal.  It  was  as  If  the  world,  aghast  at 
what  had  happened  to  these  children,  was  putting 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    235 

into  the  situation  all  the  inventiveness  and  resource 
that  human  compassion  could  devise.  Out  of  it 
was  developing  what  might  prove  to  be  a  new  and 
higher  standard  for  the  care  of  children,  one  which 
might  become  a  norm  for  the  whole  world  to  use. 
Dr.  Pirquet's  clinic,  with  its  carefully  devised  tests 
for  nutrition  and  growth,  the  thousands  of  school 
children  fed  by  the  A.R.A.,  with  the  attendant 
medical  examination,  the  huge  barracks  every- 
where turned  into  sanatoria  for  tubercular  and 
convalescent  children,  all  suggested  a  higher 
standard  of  public  care  than  that  obtained  in  any 
other  city.  Even  the  educational  requirements 
seemed  pushed  forward  by  the  dire  experience;  I 
have  never  heard  children  sing  more  beautifully, 
nor  seen  them  dance  with  more  grace  and  charm, 
than  those  Austrian  children  celebrating  the  4th 
of  July  in  the  American  Milk  Relief  Barracks, 
while  a  new  possibility  in  children's  drawing  was 
being  set  by  Professor  Cizek.  That  this  new 
standard  would  be  Vienna's  gift  to  the  world  in 
exchange  for  what  the  world  was  trying  to  do  for 
her  children  was  perhaps  the  one  ray  of  light  in 
what  could  but  be  a  dark  future.  In  talks  with 
the  Austrian  Food  Administrator  and  with  the 
Minister  of  Agriculture;  in  lectures  given  to  the 
Congress  by  the  economist,  Professor  Hertz,  and 
by  the  Minister  of  Public  Welfare,  there  was  al- 


236     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

ways  the  inevitable  conclusion,  although  stated 
with  restraint,  that  the  Peace  Treaty  had  placed 
Austria  in  an  impossible  position. 

Perhaps    it    was    because    the    Viennese    were 
pleased  to  have  their  city  selected  as  the  seat  for 
an  international  Congress,  that  they  extended  us 
such  boundless  hospitality.     The  Congress  was  re- 
ceived in  the  offices  of  the  Foreign  Minister,  by 
the  President  of  the  Republic  and  the  entire  diplo- 
matic corps;  in  the  City  Hall  by  the  Mayor  and 
the  heads  of  the  Administrative  Departments;  we 
were  entertained  by  various  musical  societies,  and 
everything  possible  was  done  to  demonstrate  that 
an  old  cultivated  city  was  making  welcome  mem- 
bers   of    an    international    body.      This    public 
hospitality,  in  which  women  officials  took  such  a 
natural  and  reasonable  place,  was  in  marked  con- 
trast to  my  former  experience  in  Austria.       In 
1913   I  had   attended   the   Suffrage   Meeting  in 
Vienna  presided  over  by  the  mother  of  the  present 
President  of  the  Austrian  Republic.     At  that  time 
the  Austrian  women  were  prohibited  by  law  from 
belonging  to  any  organization  with  a  political  aim. 
I  returned  eight  years  later,  as  I  said  at  a  public 
reception  in  the  City  Hall,  to  find  full  suffrage  ex- 
tended to  all  women  over  twenty-one  years  old, 
with  eleven  women  sitting  in  the  lower  House  of 
Parliament,  four  in  the  Upper  House,  and  twenty- 
three  as  members  of  the  City  Council.    In  the  face 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    237 

of  these  rapid  changes,  who  would  venture  to  say 
that  peace  or  any  other  unpopular  cause,  was 
hopeless.  Even  a  new  basis  for  bread  peace 
seemed  not  so  remote  when  the  large  audience, 
containing  many  Austrian  officials,  listened  with 
profound  interest  to  a  Frenchwoman,  Mile. 
Melin,  who,  although  her  devastated  home  was 
not  yet  rebuilt,  held  war  itself  as  an  institution 
responsible  for  the  wretched  world  in  which  we 
are  all  living.  She  spoke  superbly  then,  as  she 
did  once  more,  the  Thursday  following  the  Con- 
gress, when  again  in  the  City  Hall  she  addressed 
an  audience  of  wounded  soldiers  who  applauded 
to  the  echo  this  Frenchwoman  telling  them  there 
could  be  no  victor  in  modern  warfare. 

At  the  end  of  the  Congress  an  International 
Summer  School  was  held  in  the  charming  old  town 
of  Salzburg.  Students  came  from  twenty  differ- 
ent countries,  the  largest  number  from  Great 
Britain.  The  lectures,  in  English,  French  and 
German,  were  delivered  by  men  and  women  from 
a  dozen  nations  on  the  psychological,  the  eco- 
nomic, the  historic  and  biological  causes  of  war. 
They  were  provocative  of  thought  and  discussion 
in  the  class  room  itself  and  later  among  the  eager 
students,  who  constantly  arranged  special  meet- 
ings, one  every  morning  at  seven  o'clock  on  a 
mountain  top.  Again  the  Impression  we  received, 
as  in  Vienna  at  the  Congress  itself,  was  one  of 


238     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

vitality  and  energy,  as  of  a  fresh  growth  push- 
ing through  old  traditions.  The  Movement  of 
Youth  represented  by  many  of  the  German  stu- 
dents was  making  a  fresh  demand  upon  life  for 
reality  and  simplicity  which  was  in  strange  con- 
trast to  a  contention  made  by  one  of  the  lecturers 
on  science  when  he  compared  "the  will  to  possess 
with  the  will  to  live,"  showing,  with  a  wealth  of 
illustration,  that  the  former  was  apparently  be- 
coming stronger  than  the  latter.  A  discussion  at 
the  Vienna  Congress  brought  support  to  this 
theory,  contending  that  it  was  possible  for  people 
to  oppose  the  socialization  of  wealth  while  at  the 
same  time  they  advocated  the  conscription  of  life. 
Delegates  from  two  of  the  war-stricken  countries, 
one  group  from  each  side  of  the  recent  war,  were 
quite  certain  that  future  wars  might  be  prevented 
if  at  the  very  moment  that  war  was  declared  an 
automatic  conscription  of  property  could  take 
place  similar  to  the  conscription  of  young  men. 
And  yet  the  very  ardor  and  vitality  of  our 
younger  delegates,  led  by  the  able  and  spirited 
young  secretary  of  the  German  section,  Gertrude 
Baer,  constantly  challenged  any  theory  which 
could  balance  property  in  the  pan  of  the  scales 
against  human  life. 

Was  it  not  rather  that  youth,  "fashioning  the 
glory  of  the  years  to  be,"  was  transforming  prop- 
erty !     Certainly  we  felt  everywhere  in  the  midst 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    239 

of  the  political  depression  both  urge  and  zest  In 
the  efforts  of  one  country  after  another  to  restore 
the  land  to  the  people,  or  at  least  to  divide  up  the 
huge  estates  into  smaller  holdings.  In  Hungary, 
for  instance,  Barnar  Berga,  the  Minister  of  Agri- 
culture under  the  Karoly  Government,  had  been 
succeeded  by  a  peasant  named  Sabot,  who  in  the 
midst  of  the  reaction  was  putting  through  radical 
land  reforms  of  which  he  talked  to  us  with 
enthusiasm. 

The  Czecho-Slovak  Government  was  dividing 
the  estates  in  the  annexed  territories  among  the 
returned  Russian  legionaries  and  other  soldiers, 
and  their  projected  reforms  reached  much  fur- 
ther. Everywhere  there  was  acquiescence  If  not 
a  "consent"  to  the  housing  arrangements  which 
practically  all  the.  cities  had  made;  conservative 
women  told  us  with  a  certain  pride  of  what  they 
had  done  to  conform  to  the  municipal  regulations 
in  making  room  for  other  families  within  their 
houses,  and  that  it  was  "not  so  bad."  Sometimes 
this  sympathetic  report  and  the  universal  concern 
for  the  starving  children,  gave  one  hope  that  this 
Impulse  to  care  for  the  victims  of  the  war 
might  become  as  wide-spread  as  its  devastat- 
ing misery,  expressing  itself  not  only  through  the 
care  of  children  but  in  many  other  ways,  such  as 
the  governmental  subsidy  to  the  bread  supply 
which  was  still  regularly  made  In  Austria.    Would 


240     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

this  impulse  gradually  subside  into  a  "suppressed 
desire,"  forming  the  basis  of  futile  and  disturbing 
social  unrest,  would  it  be  seized  by  the  doctrin- 
aires who  were  already  trading  so  largely  upon  the 
normal  human  impulses  exaggerated  by  war,  or 
would  it  finally  be  captured  by  the  friends  of  man- 
kind? Could  not  this  impulse  to  nurture  the 
wretched  be  canalized  and  directed  by  enlarged 
governmental  agencies,  and  was  not  that  the  prob- 
lem before  the  statesmen  of  Europe? 

The  conditions  in  Southeastern  Europe  as  we 
met  them  that  hot  summer  of  192 1  might  well 
challenge  the  highest  statesmanship.  We  saw 
much  of  starvation  and  we  continually  heard  of 
the  appalling  misery  in  all  of  the  broad  belt  lying 
between  the  Baltic  and  the  Black  Seas,  to  say 
nothing  of  Russia  to  the  east  and  Armenia  to  the 
south.  Even  those  food  resources  which  were 
produced  in  Europe  itself  and  should  have  been 
available  for  instant  use,  were  prevented  from 
satisfying  the  desperate  human  needs  by  "jealous 
and  cruel  tariff  regulations  surrounding  each  na- 
tion like  the  barbed  wire  entanglements  around  a 
concentration  camp."  A  covert  war  v/as  being 
carried  on  by  the  use  of  import  duties  and  protect- 
ive tariffs  to  such  an  extent  that  we  felt  as  if  eco- 
nomic hostility,  having  been  legitimatized  by  the 
food  blockades  of  the  war,  was  of  necessity  being 
sanctioned  by  the  very  commissions  which  were  the 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    241 

outgrowth  of  the  Peace  Conference  itself.  We 
saw  that  the  smaller  states,  desperately  protect- 
ing themselves  against  each  other,  but  imitated 
the  great  Allies  with  their  protectionist  policies, 
with  their  colonial  monopolies  and  preferences. 

This  economic  war  may  have  been  inevitable, 
especially  between  successsion  States  of  the  former 
Austrian  Empire  with  their  inherited  oppressions 
and  grievances.  Yet  we  longed  for  a  Customs 
Union,  a  Pax  Economica  for  these  new  nations, 
who  failed  to  see  that  "the  price  of  nationality  is 
a  workable  internationalism,  otherwise  it  is 
doomed  so  far  as  the  smaller  states  are  con- 
cerned." 

We  arrived  in  Europe  in  the  midst  of  the  pro- 
longed discussion  as  to  the  amount  of  the  "repara- 
tions" to  be  paid  by  Germany.  This  discussion 
by  the  Supreme  Council  had  focussed  more  power- 
fully than  ever  before  the  antagonism  between 
two  conceptions  of  international  trade;  one,  that 
widest  form  of  cooperation  which  would  afford 
the  greatest  yield  of  wealth  to  the  entire  world; 
the  other,  that  conflict  of  activities  and  interests 
by  which  the  members  of  one  nation  may,  through 
governmental  ?ction,  benefit  themselves  at  the  cost 
of  the  members  of  other  nations.  The  latter 
doctrine  was  of  course  openly  applied  to  the 
enemy  nations,  but  naturally  it  could  not  be  con- 
fined to  them. 


242      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

We  had  established  our  own  bakery  in  Vienna, 
that  delegates  might  not  "eat  bread  away  from  the 
Viennese,"  and  special  food  arrangements  had 
been  made  for  our  students  in  Salzburg.  Yet 
there  was  always  the  shadow  of  the  insufficient 
food  supply.  In  the  region  of  Salzburg,  children 
were  being  fed  by  the  A.R.A.  throughout  a 
countryside  which  ordinarily  exported  milk  pro- 
ducts. The  under-nourished  students  who  filled 
the  streets  of  the  music-loving  city  during  the 
Mozart  week,  which  was  celebrated  by  daily  con- 
certs during  the  term  of  our  School,  were  a  silent 
reproach  to  one's  prosperity.  We  became  im- 
patient with  the  long-delayed  action  on  the  report 
of  the  Economic  Commission  sent  to  study 
Austria's  needs,  and  felt  that  food  and  raw  ma- 
terials must  come  quickly  if  Austria  were  to  be 
saved  from  an  economic  and  moral  collapse. 

The  situation  as  we  saw  it  seemed  to  bear  out 
completely  Norman  Angell's  theory  of  the  futility 
of  war.  As  he  stated  in  "The  Fruits  of  Victory," 
published  at  that  time;  "The  continent  as  a 
whole  has  the  same  soil  and  natural  resources  and 
technical  knowledge  as  when  it  fed  its  population, 
but  there  is  suffering  and  want  on  every  hand. 
War  psychology  is  fatal  to  social  living.  The 
Ideas  which  produce  war — the  fears  out  of  which 
It  grows  and  the  passions  which  it  feeds — produce 
a  state  of  mind  that  ultimately  renders  impossible 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    243 

the  cooperation  by  which  alone  wealth  can  be  pro- 
duced and  life  maintained." 

The  situation  therefore  resolves  itself  into  the 
dominance  of  ideas,  into  the  temper  of  mind  which 
makes  war  possible.  Even  the  pro-war  news- 
papers were  then  recognizing  it.  A  leading 
journal,  a  consistent  apologist  for  the  great  war, 
had  written:  "Europe  will  never  recover  com- 
posure and  peace,  nor  can  an  acceptable  and  work- 
able compromise  be  achieved,  until  the  conse- 
quences of  the  method  of  coercion  are  understood 
and  the  method  itself  abandoned  in  the  interest 
of  a  method  of  consent." 

And  so  we  came  back  to  what  our  own  organiza- 
tion was  trying  to  do,  to  substitute  consent  for  co- 
ercion, a  will  to  peace  for  a  belief  in  war.  Like  all 
educational  efforts,  from  the  preaching  in  churches 
to  the  teaching  in  schools,  at  moments  it  must 
seem  Ineffectual  and  vague,  but  after  all  the  ac- 
tivities of  life  can  be  changed  in  no  other  way 
than  by  changing  the  current  ideas  upon  which  it 
is  conducted. 

The  members  of  the  Woman's  International 
League  for  Peace  and  Freedom  had  certainly 
learned  from  their  experience  during  the  war  that 
widely  accepted  ideas  can  be  both  dominating  and 
all  powerful.  But  we  still  believed  it  possible  to 
modify,  to  direct  and  ultimately  to  change  current 
ideas,  not  only  through  discussion  and  careful  pre- 


244     PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

sentation  of  facts,  but  also  through  the  propa- 
ganda of  the  deed. 

In  accord  with  the  latter,  one  German  section, 
after  our  Congress  in  Vienna  had  sent  a  group  of 
women  into  Upper  Silesia,  which  at  that  time  was 
filled  with  ardent  nationalists  both  for  Germany 
and  Poland,  each  hotly  presenting  the  claims  of  his 
own  side.  The  group  of  women  entered  the  con- 
tested territory,  not  to  promote  either  national 
claim  but  to  counsel  confidence  in  the  good  inten- 
tions of  those  making  the  final  decision;  to  preach 
that  freedom  of  exchange  in  coal  or  other  com- 
modities is  more  basic  to  economic  life  than  any 
detail  of  political  boundaries;  to  abate  the  hyper- 
nationalistic  feeling  which  was  responsible  for 
actual  warfare  between  the  non-contending 
peoples. 

In  fact  it  seemed  to  me  during  that  summer  as  I 
visited  one  National  Section  after  another,  that 
all  of  our  members  in  their  daily  walk  and  con- 
versation had  been  bearing  unequivocal  testimony 
against  war  and  its  methods.  This  impression 
was  equally  vivid  at  the  public  meeting  at  Buda- 
pest where  Vilma  Glucklich  presided  sitting  next 
to  a  police  officer;  as  it  was  later  at  a  meeting  in 
London  where  Mrs.  Swanwick,  occupying  the  plat- 
form with  a  distinguished  economist,  brilliantly 
Inaugurated  a  frank  discussion  of  post-war  con- 
ditions in  Europe. 


EUROPE  AFTER  TWO  YEARS  OF  PEACE    245 

The  International  Office  of  our  League  was 
established  in  a  charming  old  house  in  Geneva.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  June  day  of  192 1,  as  I  went 
through  its  rose-filled  garden,  that  we  might  be 
profoundly  grateful  if  our  organization  was  able 
in  any  degree  to  push  forward  the  purposes  of  the 
League  of  Nations  and  to  make  its  meaning 
clearer.  Catherine  Marshall  of  England,  our 
referent  on  the  League,  had  prepared  a  full  and 
encouraging  report  for  the  Vienna  Congress  of 
what  our  office  had  been  able  to  do  in  that  direc- 
tion. Personal  friends  and  other  members  of  the 
Secretariat  had  taken  great  pains  to  have  us  see 
and  understand  the  working  of  that  new-found 
device,  with  its  elaborated  Sections  and  Standing 
Committees.  An  ample  building  was  filled  with 
men  and  a  few  women,  committed  to  study  ques- 
tions in  the  interest  of  many  nations,  not  of  any 
particular  one.  They  were  "paid  to  think  inter- 
nationally," as  a  member  of  the  Secretariat  put  it. 
And  because  they  were  really  thinking  and  not 
merely  falling  into  mere  diplomatic  discussion,  we 
had  a  sense  of  a  fresh  method  of  approach, 
whether  we  talked  to  Sir  Eric  Drummond,  to  Mrs. 
Wicksall  of  the  Mandates  Section,  or  to  the 
younger  men  so  filled  with  hope  for  the  future  of 
the  League. 

Our  Congress  in  Vienna  was  arranged  in  the 
midst  of  Austria's  desolation  by  a  group  of  high- 


246     PEACE  AND  BF^EAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

spirited  women  led  by  the  brilliant  Frau  Yella 
Hertzka  who  had  never  during  the  long  days  of 
war  or  the  ensuing  peace  hesitated  to  assert  that 
war  could  achieve  nothing. 

And  although  we  were  so  near  to  the  great  war 
with  its  millions  of  dead  and  its  starved  survivors, 
we  had  ventured  at  the  very  opening  of  the  Con- 
gress to  assert  that  war  is  not  a  natural  activity 
for  mankind,  that  large  masses  of  men  should 
fight  against  other  large  masses  is  abnormal,  both 
from  the  biological  and  ethical  point  of  view.  We 
stated  that  it  is  a  natural  tendency  of  men  to  come 
into  friendly  relationships  with  ever  larger  and 
larger  groups,  and  to  live  constantly  a  more  ex- 
tended life.  It  required  no  courage  to  predict 
that  the  endless  desire  of  men  would  at  last  assert 
itself,  that  desire  which  torments  them  almost  like 
an  unappeased  thirst,  not  to  be  kept  apart  but  to 
come  to  terms  with  one  another.  It  is  the  very 
spring  of  life  which  underlies  all  social  organiza- 
tions and  political  associations. 


AN  AFTER  WORD 

We  returned  to  the  United  States  in  October  to 
find  the  enthusiasm  for  the  International  Confer- 
ence on  the  Limitation  of  Armaments,  convened 
by  President  Harding  for  Armistice  day,  Nov. 
nth,  192 1,  running  at  full  tide. 

During  the  autumn  and  early  winter,  women's 
organizations  of  all  kinds  were  eagerly  advocat- 
ing limitations  of  armaments  and  many  of  them 
had  united  with  other  public  bodies  in  establish- 
ing headquarters  in  Washington  from  which  in- 
formation and  propaganda  were  constantly  is- 
sued. 

Seldom  had  any  public  movement  received  more 
universal  support  from  American  women;  an  esti- 
mate issued  by  the  National  League  of  Women 
Voters  stated  that  more  than  a  million  communi- 
cations had  been  sent  to  Washington  by  individu- 
als and  organizations  expressing  desire  for  some 
form  of  an  association  of  nations. 

The  Section  for  the  United  States  of  The 
Woman's  International  League  moved  its  head- 
quarters from  New  York  to  Washington  for 
the  period  of  the  Conference.  Many  of  our  Na- 
tional Sections  in  their  respective  capitals  had  held 

247 


248      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

public  meetings  on  Nov.  nth  advocating  disarma- 
ment and  those  National  Sections  whose  govern- 
ments were  represented  at  Washington  had  sent 
"manifestos"  to  their  own  Commissioners  in  ad- 
dition to  the  one  sent  on  behalf  of  the  Interna- 
tional body  authorized  at  Vienna.  We  felt  our 
voices  but  an  infinitesimal  strain  in  the  chorus 
of  praise  for  the  Conference  and  while  we  hoped 
for  much  more  than  the  limitation  so  finely  advo- 
cated by  Secretary  Hughes  we  were  able  to  unite 
with  millions  of  fellow-citizens  in  believing  the 
historic  gathering  to  be  an  earnest  of  the  time 
when  friendly  conference  and  joint  responsibility 
shall  supersede  the  secrecy  and  suspicion  leading 
to  war. 

The  disposition  to  discuss  genuine  world  prob- 
lems in  a  spirit  of  frankness  and  good  will,  in 
marked  contrast  to  traditional  international  gath- 
erings, led  to  a  wide-spread  hope  that  the  Con- 
ference had  inaugurated  a  precedent  that  might 
result  in  the  successive  throwing  off  of  Com- 
mittees and  Commissions  as  required  to  deal  with 
world  situations  and  so  institute  a  kind  of  world 
organization  which  should  be  a  natural  growth, 
in  contrast  although  not  therefore  in  opposition, 
to  the  carefully  constituted  League  of  Nations. 
It  was  also  encouraging  that  the  Conference  ex- 
hibited an  acute  consciousness  of  the  hideous  state 


AN  AFTER  WORD  249 

of  a  world  facing  starvation  and  industrial  con- 
fusion. The  strong  public  movement  developed 
during  its  sessions  for  the  immediate  calling  of 
an  international  conference  to  consider  Economic 
problems,  testified  to  the  currency  of  this  sense  of 
world  disaster  which  could  no  longer  be  confined 
to  Europe, 

Throughout  these  months  we  were  all  con- 
scious of  the  desperate  need  of  food  for  millions 
of  the  starving  Russians.  But  whether  I  was 
serving  on  a  committee  to  secure  funds,  lecturing 
before  a  State  Agricultural  Convention,  asking 
the  farmers  for  corn  to  be  sent  abroad  in  the  form 
of  meal  and  oil  or  urging  congressmen  to  vote  for 
an  adequate  appropriation  with  which  to  buy  for 
Russia  the  surplus  crop  of  grain  in  this  country, 
I  was  constantly  haunted  by  a  sense  of  colossal 
mal-adjustment,  by  the  lack  of  intelligence  in  inter- 
national affairs.  An  American  Quaker  who  came 
directly  from  the  famine  district  in  Samara  told 
us  of  the  desperate  people  living  on  powdered 
grass  and  roots  cooked  with  the  hoofs  of  horses 
that  it  might  stick  together  in  the  semblance  of  a 
flat  cake :  that  they  knew  full  well  that  even  such 
food  would  be  exhausted  by  the  first  of  the  year 
and  that  unless  help  came  from  abroad,  few  of 
them  could  survive  until  spring.  She  told  of  the 
farm  machinery  left  on  the  roadside  by  desperate 
peasants  who  could  drag  it  with  them  no  farther 


250      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

in  their  dreary  search  for  food,  of  the  possible 
abandonment  of  a  large  acreage  which  had  for 
years  supplied  millions  of  people  with  bread.  It 
was  as  if  in  the  midst  of  the  present  starvation, 
dragon's  teeth  of  future  misery  were  being  sown. 
In  December,  1921,  we  hailed  with  relief  and 
gratitude  the  appropriation  made  by  the  United 
States  Congress  toward  the  feeding  of  Russia. 
This  appropriation  of  twenty  million  dollars  not 
only  maintained  the  humanitarian  traditions  of 
the  United  States  but  because  it  openly  recog- 
nized the  relation  between  the  surplus  grain  in 
America  and  the  dearth  in  Russia,  acknowledged 
the  economic  interdependence  of  nations  and  the 
necessity  for  more  intelligent  cooperation. 

On  the  whole  H.  G.  Wells  doubtless  registered 
a  widespread  reaction  when  he  declared  that 
throughout  the  Conference  on  the  Limitation  of 
Armaments,  his  moods  had  fluctuated  between 
hope  and  despair.  His  final  words  in  a  remark- 
able series  of  articles  so  nearly  express  what  I 
had  heard  in  many  countries,  from  our  members 
during  the  summer,  that  I  venture  to  quote  them 
here : 

"But  I  know  that  I  believe  so  firmly  in  this 
great  World  at  Peace  that  lies  so  close  to  our 
own,  ready  to  come  into  being  as  our  wills 
turn  toward  it,  that  I  must  needs  go  about 
this  present  world   of   disorder  and  dark- 


AN  AFTER  WORD  251 

ness  like  an  exile  doing  such  feeble  things 
as  I  can  towards  the  world  of  my  desire, 
now  hopefully,  now  bitterly,  as  the  moods 
may  happen  before  I  die." 


APPENDIX 

women's  international  league  for  peace 

AND    FREEODM 

International  Headquarters,  6,  rue  du  Vieux- 
College,  Geneva,  Switzerland. 

Imagine  that  you  are  in  Geneva,  that  you  have 
left  behind  you  the  lake,  and  the  Jardin  Anglais 
with  its  great  fountain  and  have  turned  up  the 
Rue  d'ltalie.  In  front  of  you,  then,  you  see  an 
old  grey  wall,  overhung  with  creepers,  with  the 
date  1777  let  into  its  side,  and  a  broad  stone 
stairway  leading  up  to  a  quaint  old  house  in  a 
charming  garden.  Here  are  the  international 
headquarters  of  the  League. 

WHAT   IS    THIS    LEAGUE? 

It  is  a  federation  of  women  with  organized 
sections  in  21  of  the  most  important  countries, 
and  scattered  members  and  correspondents  from 
Iceland  to  Fiji;  women  pledged  to  do  everything 
in  their  power  to  create  international  relations 
based  on  good-will,  making  war  impossible; 
women  who  seek  to  establish  equality  between 
men  and  women,  and  who  feel  the  necessity  of 

253 


254      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

educating  the  coming  generations  to  help  to  real- 
ize these  principles. 

The  League  is  made  up  of  people  who  believe 
that  we  are  not  obliged  to  choose  between  violence 
and  passive  acceptance  of  unjust  conditions  for 
ourselves  or  others;  who  believe,  on  the  contrary, 
that  courage,  determination,  moral  power,  gen- 
erous indignation,  active  good-will,  can  achieve 
their  ends  without  violence.  We  believe  that 
experience  condemns  force  as  a  self  defeating 
weapon  although  men  are  still  so  disposed  to 
turn  to  it  in  education,  in  dealing  with  crime, 
in  effecting  or  preventing  social  changes,  and 
above  all  in  carrying  out  national  policies.  We 
believe  that  new  methods,  free  from  violence, 
must  be  worked  out  for  ending  abuses  and  for 
undoing  wrongs,  as  well  as  for  achieving  positive 
ends. 

CONGRESS  AND  SUMMER  SCHOOLS 

What  keeps  the  League  together  is  its  common 
program  as  voted  at  its  Congresses.  The  first 
of  these  was  held  at  the  Hague  in  19 15,  the  sec- 
ond at  Zurich  in  19 19,  the  last  at  Vienna  in  192 1. 
A  very  successful  international  Summer  School 
was  held  at  Salzburg  in  August,   192 1, 

National  Sections.  The  addresses  of  our  Sec- 
tions— organized  national  branches  or  corre- 
spondents— are  as  follows  : 


APPENDIX 


255 


Austria:  Frau    Yella    Hertzka,    Hofburg, 

Michaelertor,  Wien  I. 

Australia  :  Miss  Eleanor  M.  Moore,  40  Eve- 

lina Rd.,  Toorak,  Melbourne. 
Mrs.     H.     S.     Bayley,     "Runny- 
mede,"    Newton    near    Hobart, 
Tasmania. 

Mrs.  E.  A.  Guy,  Rockhampton, 
Queensland. 

Bulgaria:  Mme.   Anna   Theodorova,    Obo- 

richte  26,  Sofia. 

Mme.    Jenny    Dojilowa    Patteff, 
Bourgas. 

Canada:  Mrs.  Harriet  Dunlop  Prenter,  92 

Westminster  Avenue,  Toronto. 

Denmark:  Miss  Thora    Daugaard,   Danske 

Kvinders   Fredsbureau,   Kompag- 
nistraede  2,  Copenhagen. 

Finland:  Miss  Annie    Furuhjelm,    14   Ka- 

sarngaten,   Helsingfors. 

France:  Mme.  Gabrielle  Duchene,  10  Ave. 

de  Tokio,  Paris. 

Germany:  Frl.  Lida  Gustava  Heymann,  12 

Kaulbachstr,  Miinchen. 

Gr.  Britain:        Mrs.  H.  M.  Swanwick,  55  Gower 
St.,  London  W.  C.  i. 

Greece:  Mme.    Olga    Bellini,    c/o    Mme. 

Parren,  44  rue  Epire,  Athene. 

Hungary:  Miss  Vilma  Gliicklich,  41  Katona 

Joszef  ut.,  Budapest  V. 

Ireland:  Miss  Louie  Bennett,  39  Harcourt 

St.,  Dublin. 

Italy:  Signora  Rosa  Genoni,  6  Via  Kra- 

mer, Milan. 


256      PEACE  AND  BREAD  IN  TIME  OF  WAR 

Netherlands:  Mme.  Cor.  Ramondt-Hirsch- 
mann,  5  Valeriusplein,  Amster- 
dam. 

New  Zealand:  Mrs.  E.  Gibson,  56  St.  Mary's 
Rd.,  Auckland. 

Norway:  Miss     Martha     Larsen,     Sondre 

Huseby,  Skoien,  pr.  Kristiania. 

Poland:  Mme.       Daszynska-Golinska, 

Wspelna79/7,  Warsaw. 

Sweden:  Miss    Matilde   Widegren,    Sibyl- 

legatan  59,  Stockholm. 

Switzerland:  Mme.  Clara  Ragaz,  68  Gloriastr, 
Zurich. 

Ukraine :  Mile.   Dr.   N.   Surowzowa,   Chi- 

manistr,  29/4,  Wien  XIX. 

U.  S.  A.:  Mrs.  George  Odell,  1623  H  St., 

iWashington,  D.  C. 
Addresses  of  correspondents  and 
corresponding  societies. 

Belgium:  Mile.  Lucie  Dejardin,  48  rue  St. 

Julienne,  Liege. 

Czecho-Slov. :     Mme.  Kovarova-Machova,  Pado- 
kalska  1973,  Prague  II. 
Mme.  Pavla  Moudra,  Neveklov. 

Japan:  Mr.    Isamu    Kawakami,    Corres- 

pondence and  Publicity  Bureau, 
10  Omote  Sarugaku  Cho  Kanda, 
Tokyo. 

Miss  Tano  Jodai,  Jap.  Women's 
University  Kaishikawa,  Tokyo. 

Mexico:  Mrs.  George  D.  Shadbourne,  Jr., 

La  Mishad  Apartment,  1875 
Sacramento  St.,  San  Francisco, 
Cal. 


APPENDIX  257 

Miss  Elena  Landazurl,  3a  Cor- 
doba 77,  Mexico  City. 

Peru:  Miss  Dora  Mayer,  Loreto  altos 

45,  Callao. 

Roumania:  Mme.    Emillan,    59    rue    Doro- 

bantzilor,  Bukarest. 

Jugo-Slavia:        Mme.  Dedler,  Minlstere  de  Po- 
litique Soclale,  Belgrade. 
Dr.  Zdenka  Smrekar,  Kumlcic  ut, 
III.,  Zagreb. 

Mme.    Aloysla    Stebi,    Dunajska 
Cesta  25,  Ljubljana. 


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